tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40309993792759409342024-03-05T21:01:49.978-08:00Pack of ThreeEveryday stories from a single mom, her daughter from China, and their Portuguese water dog.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-8957403715155907822010-03-19T09:15:00.002-07:002012-04-12T11:35:38.434-07:00With thanks to my readersI want to extend both thanks as well as an apology to the many wonderful loyal readers who've stayed with this blog since it's inception last March. Between the intensity of a family crisis (friends remind me I'm now officially a member of the sandwich generation) and the job hunt, I've had less and less time to write about life in our little corner of the world. I must confess, I miss it greatly. I catch myself late at night writing long winded emails with humorous asides and self-deprecating anecdotes to family and friends. I've come to the realization, in one form or another, despite myself.... I'm a <em>sharer</em>... (<em>ew</em>....) or, casting a better light on it... a story teller. There are just too many things in life that hit me as either piercingly sad, or poignant -- or downright funny. <br />
<br />
That said, as much as I've enjoyed sharing, I have to recognize, as my daughter matures and becomes more computer savvy that, out of respect for her, it may be time to take this blog private. I can't promise regular updates, but if any of you out there in the ether are interested in staying connected, please do let me know and I'll add you to the blog's member list and offer you access. You can email me, Lisa, at: <a href="mailto:packof3@comcast.net">packof3@comcast.net</a>.<br />
<br />
And thanks again to everyone for the comments, the support, and shared stories. This blog has been one of the more fun adventures I've had the pleasure of experiencing. And believe me... I've had a lot of great adventures. But those are stories for another time...<br />
<br />
With best wishes and hopes for happy travels to each of you in your own special pack,<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">♥</span><br />
LisaUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-57452918162627025602009-12-07T15:38:00.000-08:002010-06-07T16:40:36.292-07:00Gingerbread EnvySometimes it really does seem as though the gods are trying to tell me something.<br />
<br />
Last Tuesday, <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/12/gingerbread-love.html">I wrote and posted a piece about true mother love and the lengths we sometimes go to</a>. It was a piece about my Herculean battle to construct a basic, pre-cooked, pre-packaged, gingerbread house for my daughter to decorate. Over the weekend, my cousin (who doesn't follow my blog) happened to post a photo on Facebook highlighting his two sons' recent efforts . <br />
<br />
They didn't just design, <em>bake</em>, and build a Gingerbread house from scratch. Oh no... They built Westminster Abbey!<br />
<br />
Think I'm kidding? <br />
<br />
Check it out:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwTlNMU0dNB2jzYWRVx3cSpHSlyHThL6En7wtNitIC7MALBmnLULhiqRJvbcB6sRexVhqNeX68uXf3x48Dbrd9Xa9Ic1GAB6Ef4VfsoX6-lXHPA4Yim16r9Wv6vbA26stCsZJyUASlRuU/s1600-h/Jonah+%26+Ethans+WestMinster+Gingerbread.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwTlNMU0dNB2jzYWRVx3cSpHSlyHThL6En7wtNitIC7MALBmnLULhiqRJvbcB6sRexVhqNeX68uXf3x48Dbrd9Xa9Ic1GAB6Ef4VfsoX6-lXHPA4Yim16r9Wv6vbA26stCsZJyUASlRuU/s320/Jonah+%26+Ethans+WestMinster+Gingerbread.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Humbling. Very, very humbling.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-90006318097576383612009-12-01T14:35:00.000-08:002010-06-07T16:41:26.951-07:00Gingerbread Love<div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCma6WNk7dGbhMjg6lMenMh0y2PTGb74V8MW7z69Tz4PJanZIlv3dyByvaUTbR4QxnqhE3NIXTToVOjqGVQ-fNiyxhUOKw5x1MWvAOIeg6dBk8shyphenhyphenDSNwKp6pLSYPFlM3KEaP2zM3n580/s1600/Snowman+cookie+jar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCma6WNk7dGbhMjg6lMenMh0y2PTGb74V8MW7z69Tz4PJanZIlv3dyByvaUTbR4QxnqhE3NIXTToVOjqGVQ-fNiyxhUOKw5x1MWvAOIeg6dBk8shyphenhyphenDSNwKp6pLSYPFlM3KEaP2zM3n580/s320/Snowman+cookie+jar.jpg" yr="true" /></a></div><br />
(<em>Note</em>: Often I write about adoption issues. I write about life as an adoptive parent, life as a single parent, and sometimes, simply parenting -- and the lengths we go to. This is one of those times.)<br />
<br />
<br />
The turkey’s bones are barely cold, but already my daughter is thinking ahead to Christmas. She wants to do another gingerbread house. I laugh thinking back to last year's debacle. <em>How did I ever get in so deep?</em> <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">* * * * * </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>We were standing before a Christmas display at the local grocery store and my daughter was looking at me with Bambi eyes. In less time than it takes to utter a merry "Ho! Ho! Ho!" I knew I was sunk.<br />
<br />
We'd just come from the hospital. Another third grader had drop-kicked a ball on the playground and my daughter had stopped it at close range. With her face. I'd received the call from school explaining: a bloody nose, a gusher going strong after 20 minutes. The woman recommended a trip to the hospital. I was in the middle of a big project I'd been hoping to finish that day so, for a split second, I thought, <em>Okay. Sure. Where do I sign?</em> After a brief, awkward silence, I realized the woman’s point was that <em>I</em> was supposed to come and retrieve my daughter. <br />
<br />
"Oh! Of course!" I replied. "I'll be right there!" <br />
<br />
I arrived at the school office to see my sweet daughter rise from her seat clutching an enormous, bloodied wad of paper towel tight about her nose. With her eyes barely visible, she greeted me with a brave, if somewhat nasal, sheepish, "Hi Mo-b." Sure, I was worried -- but by the time we got a chance to see the doctor at the hospital, it was clear she was bruised, but unbowed. I figured she could handle a stop at the grocery store on our way home. <br />
<br />
So there we were, only a few steps in, beyond the sliding doors, when I heard her gasp "Oh! Mom!" I turned and saw her staring at the pre-packaged gingerbread house kits with longing. My little craft-challenged heart tightened. My first reaction was not one I'm proud of: <br />
<br />
<em>Drat! It's that time of year again. </em><br />
<br />
Now, I love Christmas. But while I can decorate our plastic, plug-in tree, deck the holly, and hang a wreath faster than you can say "Santa," the gingerbread house is, has always been, my nemesis. My sitter started this tradition with my daughter. But my sitter was gone and now it was up to me.<br />
<br />
My daughter stood before me, hands clasped together with rapture. "<em>Please</em> Mom... Couldn't we <em>please</em> get a gingerbread house?" <br />
<br />
She'd been such a good sport. And I had to admit I was grateful she was okay. I crumbled. <br />
<br />
"Sure honey. You were a trooper today."<br />
<br />
She jumped up and down with elation. This made me nervous. <br />
<br />
"Now wait." I warned. "I can't promise you I can start on this tonight." I was thinking about my project. I still hoped to get back to it and make some headway after she was in bed. "You'll have to be patient." <br />
<br />
"Oh Mom! That's okay. I can be patient. Maybe we could work on it this weekend?!"<br />
<br />
"You'll have to be patient." I repeated as I picked out one of the sparkly, cellophane packages. It was surprisingly heavy. "The first step is to glue the walls together. Then you have to add the roof. It’s tricky. It all has to dry and harden -- or it will collapse."<br />
<br />
"I know! I can be patient, Mom. I can be patient."<br />
<br />
<em>Yeah. Yeah. </em>I thought.<br />
<br />
We got home and unloaded the groceries. I noticed her eyes danced, her feet tapped, her body twitched, every time she looked at the package. It sat there on the counter, beckoning her, taunting me.<br />
<br />
I softened again. Once we ate dinner, I cleared the dishes off by the sink, pulled out a large cookie sheet, spread aluminum foil across the bottom, and broke open the kit. <br />
<br />
My daughter practically scaled the counter, leaning halfway across it in eager anticipation.<br />
<br />
I held up my hands as if to ward off a tidal wave. "Let me glue it first." I said. "It's delicate."<br />
<br />
"I know Mom. I know. Here's the glue!" she said, pulling out the bag of pre-mixed confectioners' sugar and water. <br />
<br />
<em>Pre-mixed, huh?</em> It seemed watery. That should have been my first clue. But I figured the folks making these kits surely knew what they were doing. <br />
<br />
I started with two sides of the house and applied the "glue" along the edges. Then I pressed two wall edges together. <br />
<br />
"Now we wait." I said to my daughter.<br />
<br />
"How long?" she asked.<br />
<br />
"I don't know. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes." Ha. The optimism of the un-initiated.<br />
<br />
I finished the dishes, then we checked our handiwork. The two walls held steady. So I took a gamble and glued the third side. My daughter noticed the problem first. <br />
<br />
"Uh... Mom... Something's wrong ..." <br />
<br />
I turned and saw all three walls listing to one side. <br />
<br />
"Uuuurgh!" I mumbled. <br />
<br />
I applied more glue. But this only seemed to make the whole thing more slick. My fingers were now a white, goo-ey mess. The walls fell over. "Shit!" I mumbled. <br />
<br />
"What, Mom?" <br />
<br />
"Don't talk to me now." I muttered. <br />
<br />
"You shouldn't swear Mom!" <br />
<br />
"Look! I'm trying to get this <em>stupid</em> Gingerbread house to stand up! Don't push me!" <br />
<br />
"Sorry Mom. ....Can I help?"<br />
<br />
"NO!"<br />
<br />
She retreated. "Maybe this was a bad idea...." <br />
<br />
"No, no, no..." I tried reassuring her. "It's okay. Really. Just give me a moment."<br />
<br />
I looked up. The look of wonder and joy that once suffused her face had vanished, replaced with a wall of worry. My heart sank. <br />
<br />
<em>I suck</em>… I thought.<br />
<br />
I took a deep breath and re-grouped. "It's okay honey. Mom's just frustrated. I'll get it. You'll see. Then you can decorate it however you want."<br />
<br />
She was quiet. Bambi eyes.<br />
<br />
I struggled some more and swore -- very quietly -- beneath my breath. Finally, finally, using all the glue left in the bag and props that included drinking glasses, salt and pepper shakers, and the mustard, I got all four walls standing. There was still the roof, the two heaviest pieces. But for now, I had four walls glued and standing and that was progress.<br />
<br />
As we climbed the stairs for my daughter to get ready for bed, I promised once the walls were dry, I'd set the roof. We were close I told her. Really close. <em>And maybe, just maybe</em>, I thought to myself, <em>with the roof glued, I'll have time to get to my project!</em><br />
<br />
My daughter washed up, then brushed her teeth and hair. I tucked her into bed and sat down beside her. I told her I was glad her nose was okay. That I was proud of how she'd handled herself. That she might consider ducking next time. We chuckled together, then I kissed her good night and headed downstairs renewed, recharged, ready for battle. <br />
<br />
The four walls were still standing! Gaining confidence, I threw together a quick homegrown mix of confectioners sugar and a teaspoon of water. I glued on the roof. <br />
<br />
<em>Voila! </em><br />
<br />
Sponging down the counters, my thoughts turned with relish to the final details of my project. I turned to admire my handiwork and, as if to punish my hubris, as if the gods were lying in wait, as if in slow motion, the walls, the roof, all six pieces in tandem, at will, folded in on themselves. <br />
<br />
I wanted to cry. <br />
<br />
But I remembered my daughter's face and I thought, <em>If it takes me all night, if I only get four walls standing, I will do this. </em><br />
<br />
Going in to battle was clearly the wrong metaphor. I reset my expectations and assumed a Zen-like posture. <em>Oooohhhhhhm....</em><br />
<br />
I turned on the tv, selected a reality show, and slowly, carefully rebuilt our storybook structure. By the time I finished, my neck and shoulders hurt, my feet, my back, my whole body, ached. But the walls were up and the roof was in place. I turned the kitchen lights out and retreated beaten and bruised to the living room. <br />
<br />
<em>Wow... </em>I thought. <em>I'm a wreck. Over a gingerbread house? I'll just sit and chill for a bit. </em><br />
<br />
I thought back to my daughter's face in the grocery store. The joy, the anticipation when I gave her the nod. My mind wandered. She was safe. I was grateful... How I loved that kid...<br />
<br />
Through the blur of my thoughts, I heard something in the kitchen. A faint: "Tink. Tink... tink." <br />
<br />
<em>What next? </em>I thought blearily. <em>Mice perhaps? </em><br />
<br />
I was too tired to check. But then the phone rang so, reluctantly, I rose. I returned to the kitchen, flicked on the lights, and answered the call, a friend checking in.<br />
<br />
"How are you?" he asked.<br />
<br />
I stood there mute, staring in disbelief at the gingerbread house. All six pieces, the roof, the walls, lay flat -- in a single, sugary heap -- in the center of my tin foil covered cookie sheet.<br />
<br />
I let out a slow: "Merry $#%*&! Christmas!" <br />
<br />
I tried to explain I was in the midst of a crisis, enduring a new, totally original form of torture: death by gingerbread. Soon though I was laughing through my tears as I explained how things had gone from bad to worse. Mice? What was I thinking?! <br />
<br />
I vowed I'd never eat gingerbread <em>anything, ever </em>again.<br />
<br />
I hung up the phone, and -- fleetingly -- pined for plumbers' cement. I fantasized about super glue and industrial strength epoxy. But, lacking any of these, I returned with stoic resolve. Pulling the last of the confectioners' sugar from the shelf, I added the <em>tiniest</em> amount of water, drop by drop. <br />
<br />
I was up past midnight. But, by the following morning, <em>lo and behold</em>, my daughter had her gingerbread house. We celebrated, brainstorming all the ways she might decorate. Her face, once again, was suffused with joy.<br />
<br />
So this year, my daughter is asking, "Can we do another gingerbread house, Mom?!" <br />
<br />
I smile knowingly. All I can think is, <em>Ho, ho, ho....</em><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKjrE7S5ytnXMhPDyD1tBJJQUbBJplXc81Xs9_sfXKzgJMgnEHGTCwsghvoWUxB0wxvI1auL89w3quaeyjlLjUjVSRQ8pPVGoPetBdCbEYTvHCtbSB7-utgP5261jzzr54lUpxBEIPAQ/s1600/Gingerbread+house+-+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKjrE7S5ytnXMhPDyD1tBJJQUbBJplXc81Xs9_sfXKzgJMgnEHGTCwsghvoWUxB0wxvI1auL89w3quaeyjlLjUjVSRQ8pPVGoPetBdCbEYTvHCtbSB7-utgP5261jzzr54lUpxBEIPAQ/s320/Gingerbread+house+-+1.jpg" yr="true" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-75436726780001526312009-11-23T11:01:00.000-08:002009-11-24T15:08:19.544-08:00A Daughter from China Ponders the Question: "Where Were You Born?"<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimLIX9uz6UYdxAtQiLrfEKTmbIEJz7yFhaNsVC67tq74ZX0ZVulDB9q3fusQTm3-jlpVVLE0LR7H_1Fth5NFgrE7tMdKEZ8ocforHMFHlIaG4B5Hkp2nrkBFipy8QFVORDdT6Uagh1Rn4/s1600/Stork+with+baby+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimLIX9uz6UYdxAtQiLrfEKTmbIEJz7yFhaNsVC67tq74ZX0ZVulDB9q3fusQTm3-jlpVVLE0LR7H_1Fth5NFgrE7tMdKEZ8ocforHMFHlIaG4B5Hkp2nrkBFipy8QFVORDdT6Uagh1Rn4/s320/Stork+with+baby+girl.jpg" yr="true" /></a><br />
</div><br />
My daughter's innocence recedes with each passing day. <br />
<br />
It seems only a short while ago she and I were riding about town in the family wagon, talking about the trip we would someday take to China. At the thought of it, she'd thrown up her arms and burst out: <br />
<br />
"Everyone will be there to greet me!" <br />
<br />
She is, most certainly, surrounded with love and affirmation in our protected little pocket of life here in the U.S. So it wasn't totally surprising she'd developed a rather optimistic view both of life, and herself. But though I loved the ebullience of her outlook and her expectations, I knew too her view of China had become a bit... inflated.<br />
<br />
This is no longer the case, in part, because I have worked to help her develop a more balanced, more complete view, not only of our country, but of her birth country. Certainly, no place is perfect. After <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/of-loss-and-joy-and-desiring.html">confronting the hard facts of her abandonment last spring and grieving her losses</a>, she knows this. But she appears to have weathered the worst of it -- and come out the other side. The result? My nine year old has developed a sense of humor tinged with irony.<br />
<br />
Driving home together from school last Thursday, she mentioned one of her friends had been born at a local, neighborhood hospital. The topic had come up at school and friends had launched into a full discussion of who was born at which hospital. Inevitably, the question was posed to my daughter. As I drove the last few blocks to our house, she relayed the ensuing exchange in a punchy, sassy tone with an implied sub-text: <em>Were y'all raised in a barn? Don't you know families struggled in China?</em> <br />
<br />
"They asked me which hospital I was born at, Mom. I said, 'What do you mean which hospital?! Where was I <em>born</em>? I don't know! I probably wasn't born <em>in a hospital</em>. I was probably born... <em>on the floor!'</em>"<br />
<br />
Her timing was so keen, her phrasing so pithy, I burst out laughing. <br />
<br />
I meant to follow-up and check in with her, but we pulled in front of the house and groceries, dinner, the dog, the demands of homework, and the flow of a busy weeknight evening carried us straight through to bedtime. Of course, as with most unfinished business, it all came back to me the next morning -- at 2am. The conversation echoed in my brain and I wondered if I'd missed my cue and been hugely insensitive, if this was something eating at her self-esteem. I made a mental note to check in with her in a quiet moment the next day, when we could sit face to face, when I could see her expression.<br />
<br />
"Remember the conversation you shared with me about your friends, about where you were born?" I ask. "Were you upset about this? Was it bothering you?" I pause, then wince a little, "Should I <em>not</em> have laughed?"<br />
<br />
She looks straight at me and an enormous grin spreads over her face. <br />
<br />
"I was joking Mom." <br />
<br />
She was having fun with them. She was having fun with me. <br />
<br />
It's patently clear she's in command of her story and how she will frame it.<br />
<div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-88822621355785065882009-11-09T22:17:00.000-08:002009-11-17T11:30:53.900-08:00"Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity in Adoption"<div></div><br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402365662945974018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagPzD0BWvbqT05Aade2Jj8tuiWXmBLmur_8gIBEG7x6aatsxREc_9qj_P9-J6YkhPq2QVJnosNPTLfeH8nOOieSJKh1NL-T3CfYluGQyksMTLKDZ6dDh_bGAPA-IxXqHU6b7aRkx4g4w/s320/FCC+Passage+to+the+Heart.gif" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 169px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 287px;" /><br />
It's interesting timing given <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/11/transracial-adoption-identity-images-in.html">my focus in recent weeks and my post from this afternoon</a>, (I wish I could claim to be clairvoyant but that would be pushing it) but there's very interesting news, just out today, for the entire adoption community.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/index.php">Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute</a> just released a new, ground-breaking study entitled, "<a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/publications/2009_11_BeyondCultureCamp.pdf">Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity in Adoption</a>." According to the authors, the study offers the most extensive look to-date at identity development in adoptees. It incorporates decades of research while also drawing on extensive interviews with "White" as well as transracial (primarily Korean American) adult adoptees. The study explores and identifies experiences and strategies that promote positive identity development in adoptees.<br />
<br />
Here are highlights or the "central findings," as cited in the study's <a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/publications/2009_11_BeyondCultureCamp.pdf">Executive Summary</a>:<br />
<br />
(1) Adoption is an increasingly significant aspect of identity for adopted people as they age, and remains so even when they are adults.<br />
<br />
(2) Race/ethnicity is an increasingly significant aspect of identity for those adopted across color and culture.<br />
<br />
(3) Coping with discrimination is an important aspect of coming to terms with racial/ethnic identity for adoptees of color.<br />
<br />
(4) Discrimination based on adoption is a reality, but more so for White adoptees – who also report being somewhat less comfortable with their adoptive identity as adults than do their Korean counterparts.<br />
<br />
(5) Most transracial adoptees considered themselves White or wanted to be White as children.<br />
<br />
(6) Positive racial/ethnic identity development is most effectively facilitated by “lived” experiences, such as travel to a native country, attending racially diverse schools, and having role models of their own race/ethnicity.<br />
<br />
(7) Contact with birth relatives, according to the White respondents, is the most helpful factor in achieving a positive adoptive identity.<br />
<br />
(8) Different factors predict comfort with adoptive and racial/ethnic identity for<br />
Korean and White adoptees.<br />
<br />
The findings and publication of this study is very good news for our community -- assuming it helps foster further discussion and thinking as to how we, as parents, can best help our children develop a stronger, more positive sense of themselves.<br />
<br />
I don't know about you, but I need all the help I can get.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-13103676651222094992009-11-09T14:32:00.000-08:002009-11-17T21:29:35.120-08:00Transracial Adoption: Identity & Images in the Media<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw0ZZj7sAuIRIFP2GmtQSmgVFXP2f8ryCVH9WTNIqbLZ51gbuJRH0xyPfq-nEBZ-tE3ZfvCiBqx-2ENHPzWsIsz5ZVlN_tPeWq00i4qdtsfdfXtJ6aCoUapDIIZlPe5tdFperjjEnMHyg/s1600-h/Wei+Minzhi+Not+One+Less.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402257375367560418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw0ZZj7sAuIRIFP2GmtQSmgVFXP2f8ryCVH9WTNIqbLZ51gbuJRH0xyPfq-nEBZ-tE3ZfvCiBqx-2ENHPzWsIsz5ZVlN_tPeWq00i4qdtsfdfXtJ6aCoUapDIIZlPe5tdFperjjEnMHyg/s320/Wei+Minzhi+Not+One+Less.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 242px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 242px;" /></a>My daughter clears her dinner dish and skips over to the fruit bowl to pick out a banana. Cracking the tip, she slowly draws back the peel, section by section, then stops to study the flowering banana. She looks up at me and an impish smile spreads across her face. Lifting a dangling piece of peel between thumb and forefinger, she holds it out . Turning her head to one side, tilting her nose up, she commences to waltz about the kitchen – with her banana.<br />
<br />
She can’t <em>not</em> dance.<br />
<br />
She’s in constant motion these days. Everything seems a cause for celebration. She’s testing her wings, discovering new gifts in every direction.<br />
<br />
She loves school, math, science, humanities, art, music and of course, best of all, recess, and friends. Last year she joined her school soccer team but merely danced and bobbed at a healthy distance away from the ball while her teammates scrambled. But this year, she’s scrambling, scrimmaging, kicking, and scoring. She also plays goalie. Two weeks ago, an attacker broke free and raced down the field. My daughter calmly planted her feet and stared at the girl. When the shot came, it hit my daughter square in the chest. Her arms wrapped reflexively about the ball. She looked stunned, but then broke into a grin, rocked back on her heels, and drummed the ball with her fingers as if to say, <em>No worries my pretty.</em> She then proceeded to strut up and back in front of the goal, cradling her prize, pumping her fist.<br />
<br />
The ref had to remind her to throw the ball back in play.<br />
<br />
She’s developing a sense of herself, her power, her abilities. She’s feeling good and yet, I know, challenges await.<br />
<br />
Since viewing <em><a href="http://www.adoptedthemovie.com/">Adopted</a></em>, I’ve been reading. I read Helen Zia’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Asian-American-Dreams-Emergence-People/dp/0374527369">Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_0_8?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=yell-oh+girls&sprefix=Yell-Oh+">Yell-Oh Girls</a></em> by Vickie Nam. I’ve begun following blogs like <em><a href="http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/">AdoptionTalk</a></em>, <a href="http://adopt-a-tude.blogspot.com/">Adopt-a-tude</a>, <em><a href="http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/harlows_monkey/">Harlow’s Monkey</a></em>, <a href="http://loveisntenough.com/">Anti-Racist Parent</a>, and <em><a href="http://www.angryasianman.com/">Angry Asian Man</a></em>.<br />
<br />
I understand all too well now there will be those who will try to write my daughter’s narrative for her, pegging her as the smart minority, the geeky minority, the exotic female, the unwanted daughter, the perpetual foreigner, or worse, the spy. I’ve read the stories. I’ve heard the comments.<br />
<br />
My goal now is to equip my daughter as best as I can. To bolster her self esteem. To give her a strong -- <em>dare I say, rock solid?</em> -- sense of herself and her rightful place in the world.<br />
<br />
It’s not enough to connect her with her heritage through books, holidays, language, art, and dance. She needs to connect and identify with other Asian American (as well as Euro-American) friends, kids, adoptees, and adults. She needs healthy role models. She also needs positive images reflected back at her from the mix of media around her.<br />
<br />
I conduct a silent audit.<br />
<br />
We live in a city with a relatively healthy Asian American population. We’re surrounded by numerous, varied, highly accomplished Asian Americans, civic leaders, journalists, doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics, legislators, and politicians. 20% of my daughter’s 4th grade class is Asian American. Within a quarter mile radius of our home, we know no less than 6 Chinese daughters, born in China, adopted and growing up here, full-fledged American citizens. Our city enjoys a thriving, active, organized group of Families with Children from China. My daughter’s best neighborhood friend – through pure serendipity – is Japanese American. The girl's parents are distinguished physicians and academics. My daughter's dentist, orthodontist, one of her teachers, one of her coaches, are or, have also been, of Asian descent. It’s not something I’ve focused on falsely or deliberately, but we also know and are friends with a number of mixed race families, some by marriage, some by adoption, some by both.<br />
<br />
At least in our friendships, our community, and the broader world in which we circulate, my girl has a relatively varied view before her. But, what about images in the media? In the books we read? In the films we watch?<br />
<br />
When she was a toddler, we had a wealth of picture books to draw from that reflected our world, her heritage, or parts of our story.<br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402235789798033938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKdQEjPuSu_E4h70UzsgHrf6_kYNlTlKrRgzXM8bxruCZmGiyAmtiLia7SONzxBySKdmxRRfyLyZSQf82OqLW524zXq0htqFp3M2G9KneiQoiqO-4YFjhd42PIzcuNrv3xwC5lrqfssb8/s320/Children's+Picture+Books.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 248px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
But now, my daughter’s at a different age, with different needs. She needs youthful heroines she can relate to. She reads a lot and we watch the occasional movie, though she’s always been highly sensitive. So much so, that most of Hollywood’s fare has proven too violent. Over the years, we’ve taken refuge in the "classics." The books I grew up with. But, how well do these classics reflect a healthy reality for her? I survey my daughter’s bookcase along with our video and DVD collection.<br />
<br />
It's a wake-up call.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402236053342425058" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUI98DXUNlKHlGU1WYMS2KBLVkCSwC0klLbt3n-1EFCg-G3tJ2xrAgtKW2xA_VvVLA64_H5_HOvlhNClbKSRbYa-8XVUkav7ENBEBmRQuhyphenhyphen7TtoRax8eumP8Ni7Hspe-iVm7_lYSJMvA/s320/American+girl+heroines.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 260px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 365px;" /><br />
How many white, English, blond, or red-headed heroines can my daughter take? You know.. the girls with the alabaster skin, apple-colored cheeks, lush golden, or auburn colored curls, or worse, the stereotypically <em>large, round</em> eyes, that blaze blue as sapphires? There’s a brunette in there but, please... how many of us look like Elizabeth Taylor?<br />
<br />
The results of my audit propel me to action. I scour Blockbuster for a movie with a young Asian heroine -- but find nothing. I find a small, retro, independent rental store with a broader, deeper selection of American as well as foreign and old movies. It takes me 40 minutes to find a single reason to hope. I vaguely remember seeing <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Not-One-Less-Minzhi-Wei/dp/0767853512">Not One Less</a></em> from my pre-parenting days. I sign it out and take it home.<br />
<br />
<em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjZF3rhyphenhyphenbWs71-qjuZgbWp_khJPrfbzfSEBECzSo-WklsLKvr6RMa_g5LSrdZKV8OEmyMFuziJ2y8F2t37UDHZDxvxoerEdzMSyyPadogNeryxG8eR4Usnf4MPLAE5mD09qOHqJwjKK8/s1600-h/NotOneLess.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402255317225603730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjZF3rhyphenhyphenbWs71-qjuZgbWp_khJPrfbzfSEBECzSo-WklsLKvr6RMa_g5LSrdZKV8OEmyMFuziJ2y8F2t37UDHZDxvxoerEdzMSyyPadogNeryxG8eR4Usnf4MPLAE5mD09qOHqJwjKK8/s320/NotOneLess.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 220px;" /></a>Not One Less</em> is the story of a 13 year old girl from China’s countryside who’s recruited to serve as a substitute teacher in a crude one room classroom. When one of her many unruly charges is sent to the big city to earn a wage for his family, she goes to heroic lengths to rescue him off the streets. The scenery is breath-taking. The characters, inspiring.<br />
<br />
My daughter doesn’t even balk at the sub-titles. Instead, she exclaims, “I can make out some of the Chinese words, Mom!”<br />
<br />
More noticeable still is her chatty, open reaction to the characters.<br />
<br />
"Look Mom! Isn't she beautiful?!"<br />
"Isn’t she pretty?!” "Oh! The kids are so cute!"<br />
“Wow, she’s really determined. I can be determined like that.”<br />
"I love this film, Mom. Can we do more movies like this?"<br />
<br />
As I shut off the DVD player, I direct my daughter to head upstairs and get ready for bed while I finish up in the kitchen. When I turn to make my ascent up the stairs, I find my daughter waiting for me, standing at the top of the landing.<br />
<br />
“That movie was a <em>TEN</em>, Mom!”<br />
<br />
<em>Wow. </em>I think. <em>Note to self... I need to find more movies like this one.</em><br />
<br />
I go to bed with a small sense of victory. The next day, I sign up for Netflix and spend time digging about for movies like <em>Not One Less</em>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcJleZM-h8XankoAgGRJ501ZE7CG_K_JW7hqZU5UYbYYe3s4D6w0oydMDej3Ho45hN3noerhuuMU12lM-GWoIo8_O2R8hMzZTw0sBU6kLqLrtf7MQYzdAKLZRX0UBw-piqb5fu0SH7bLo/s1600-h/The+Road+Home+-+1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402255522442450034" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcJleZM-h8XankoAgGRJ501ZE7CG_K_JW7hqZU5UYbYYe3s4D6w0oydMDej3Ho45hN3noerhuuMU12lM-GWoIo8_O2R8hMzZTw0sBU6kLqLrtf7MQYzdAKLZRX0UBw-piqb5fu0SH7bLo/s320/The+Road+Home+-+1.jpg" style="float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a> A few days later my daughter arrives home from school and I show her the red envelope containing: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Road-Home-Ziyi-Zhang/dp/B00005QFE5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1257807667&sr=1-1">The Road Home</a>.<br />
<br />
She gushes. “Oh Mom! If it’s a Chinese film, it’s got to be good!”<br />
<br />
She can’t wait to watch it and indeed the movie proves beautiful. Epic, allegorical, and tragic -- in a gentle, romantic, kind of way -- it's the story of a country girl who falls deeply in love with a newly arrived young teacher. Accused of "Rightest" tendencies, he is summoned away to the city. The country girl waits stoically in the freezing cold snow, hour after hour, day after day, anticipating his return. But he is detained and she falls desperately ill. Word reaches the teacher and he sneaks back to be by her side only to be punished by the authorities. The two must wait several more years while he is further detained in the city. <br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402258337260093090" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig3Y_XAGftg0l-sZliejeoWHXxp7pJJJrzCNe0mJk8FakFrTFT0Po4GWQfc5VYmqu_3EI4o2WD5r0Vp9za4vqPT1ssI8BwgLB9KlsOlsejzR-pQFF4uNCgUXuhAfGaIufmiMcKvWhXvNU/s320/The+Road+Home+-+4.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 214px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" />The movie stars the luminous Zhang Ziyi, and the strikingly handsome Zheng Hao, and it's all shot against a backdrop of sweeping mountain scenery, deep in the Chinese hinterland. <br />
My daughter loves it.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmfAgpQGt5iol4gIfugtUBUt1Zlwaph3p-xkJo3OyoJlGitVPtC-pa1pBkb7Rdb4aOKD9KD0CLibrZ9TrjVBp13pmSTStJjNzSCdkF5y6NUSjYywHCufTsgnNVGeLx0O9LendAteAXPv0/s1600-h/King+of+Masks.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402256756419638594" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmfAgpQGt5iol4gIfugtUBUt1Zlwaph3p-xkJo3OyoJlGitVPtC-pa1pBkb7Rdb4aOKD9KD0CLibrZ9TrjVBp13pmSTStJjNzSCdkF5y6NUSjYywHCufTsgnNVGeLx0O9LendAteAXPv0/s320/King+of+Masks.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 216px;" /></a>Next we try <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/King-Masks-Zhigang-Zhang/dp/0767847377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1257807698&sr=1-1">The King of Masks</a></em>, a story of poverty and struggle from the 1930’s. An old magician street performer bemoans his fate in having no son to whom he can pass on his ancient art. He buys a child on the black market. But the child is a girl disguised as a boy. The man and girl develop a bond, but her secret is exposed and there are tragic results. The characters face loss, destitution, abuse, and a brush with death before finally realizing they can make a life together.<br />
<br />
The story is difficult. Too difficult. I press the mute button a lot but we’re both unsettled and in tears over the heart wrenching drama. I apologize. Together, we agree the choice wasn't the best.<br />
<br />
<em>Oops…</em><br />
<br />
I scan the Chinese section in Netflix once more but there are so many films filled with martial arts, swords, daggers, and bloodshed. And then there’s the porn. Lots of porn, portraying Asian women as exotic …<em>er… um… </em>play things.<br />
<br />
<em>Time for a documentary, maybe?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQD-aYlR_r9Yi0AopCr4fa88jzjApqbvTmCOgTLmHDpasot8jZbWzk2hGhUKwgS2Z4cJLh1pmmgDgGdQtU0MQ0d9fl0MsqNJPUhkmyJEcaYQYKF3mDhaF7QPU8cSAyV5RSfldhkBHN8Wk/s1600-h/BBC+Wild+China.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402255637897971298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQD-aYlR_r9Yi0AopCr4fa88jzjApqbvTmCOgTLmHDpasot8jZbWzk2hGhUKwgS2Z4cJLh1pmmgDgGdQtU0MQ0d9fl0MsqNJPUhkmyJEcaYQYKF3mDhaF7QPU8cSAyV5RSfldhkBHN8Wk/s320/BBC+Wild+China.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 271px;" /></a> My efforts here prove fruitful. I discover the BBC’s 2008 production, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wild-China/dp/B0016I0AH8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1257807741&sr=1-1">Wild China</a></em>. The two disk series offers more than 6 hours of National Geographic-like footage of China. It’s an incredible survey of China’s vast, unique landscapes, it's remote mountains, rivers, flood plains, and deserts. It features some of China’s most amazing, most unusual wildlife, and includes the story of several local peoples, traditions, and cultures.<br />
<br />
The documentary is a hit. We share several nights curled up under a blanket “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” over China’s riches.<br />
<br />
Now, when we’re not viewing an installment of <em>Wild China</em>, my daughter and I curl up together to read and enjoy another new favorite: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=Tales+of+a+Chinese+Grandmother">Tales of a Chinese Grandmother</a>,” a book I found rummaging about our local Chinatown. In the meantime, our “Netflix Queue” has grown. It now includes not only tales and documentaries from China, but children’s stories from around the world.<br />
<br />
Are my efforts making a difference? I think so. I hope so.<br />
<br />
A few months ago, we discovered my daughter is lactose intolerant. The other day, as she helped entertain a friend and serve up some lunch, she offered, “Sorry. We don’t have milk at our house any more. Would you like some water?” Her friend was unfazed by the news, but my daughter seemed eager to explain: “I’m lactose intolerant.”<br />
<br />
It sounded like she was boasting -- which puzzled me. Until she added:<br />
<br />
“It’s really a common thing you know. Among Asians. I’m Asian.”<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402244021066407810" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAsZG617qI0ccBWsy7WDv-B4nIZQpGKGkvSBG3zTSTFVc2paQg49HoVhKn7oK52u3szTC0cm6fQ51NIqzIVscmA_TAUokkDz7OOoX1pItw2o5iPP1dgmRJPkMYsIOJBkKfCoujca1d5U/s320/Wei+Minzhi.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 214px;" /><br />
Got any film or book recommendations to share? I'd love it if you shared them. Just click on the "comments" link below.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-62048571315852059922009-10-10T15:02:00.000-07:002009-11-17T21:30:55.389-08:00An Adoption Reunion: Aliens in America<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">I've been thinking a lot and reading a lot lately about the <a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html">issues Jen Fero raised in the documentary film </a><em><a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html">Adopted</a> </em>which <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/10/transracial-adoption-another-adoptee.html">I wrote about recently</a>. As a parent in general but also, as an adoptive parent, I feel a responsibility to learn and do all I can, to pay attention, to stay attuned, and help my Chinese born daughter feel at home in her adopted home, culture, and country. At the same time, I know the risk: it's easy to become hyper-vigilant, to second guess every exchange, and make oneself just a teeny bit ...stir crazy. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">I'm thinking back to an exchange I had with my daughter this past summer.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391228474489850690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5GgondgY5Vp8cSpq4gmV9NhBtxvp9hjIM6nOkqbra5389p7DGXJsZwWyffOIBE8VUjawGxrAv0plwBg0iLQumW9aBYiVufKvgv23KOjk6VWTHM6eU6UH-lBrIl1qIsmzSze3AsxtzYDI/s320/Two+antennae+two+feet.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 192px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 232px;" /></span><span style="color: black;">It was the last weekend in August and my 9 year old daughter and I drove 3 hours south to join the annual reunion of 10 or so adoptive families who traveled together and bonded, 8 long years ago, on our journey to China to adopt our beloved daughters. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">This year was the first time, since making this trek, since my daughter understood the significance of this gathering, since <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/of-loss-and-joy-and-desiring.html">she'd struggled with the losses in her story this past spring</a>, that my daughter was excited to go.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">The reunion is typically hosted at one very generous family's home. We all contribute different dishes and share in a potluck dinner. We visit. We feast. We celebrate. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">As parents, it's our hope our girls will develop and share a life-long bond. As parents, we already share a special bond, remembering that singular morning we gathered together in the lobby of the Liang hotel in Wuhan to meet our toddlers, each and every child looking pale, worried, tearful, and uncertain. We share the bond too of knowing, in a crazy-making-kind-of-way, that any one of our daughters -- the lanky girl running across the garden, the stocky girl sneaking an extra helping of noodles, the girl seated shyly at the table -- could just as easily have been <em>our</em> daughter. None of us will ever know, or be able to divine, the thinking (or even if there was much thinking) that went into the effort to match each girl with each family. It happened thousands of miles away, in a small sterile office, at the China Center for Adoption Affairs, in Beijing. The end result? No music, no fanfare. Just a letter and a crude photo mailed, special delivery, to homes across the US, a single envelope that would change the trajectory of each of our lives.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">With the start of the reunion this year, the girls took a little time to warm to each other. But soon enough they embraced each other and the traditional party-like atmosphere. In prior years, one of the dad's had rigged a hose to a giant, jerry-rigged slip'n slide. Another year, the girls had partied on an enormous outdoor trampoline. This year the girls piled like puppies on to a hammock, swinging and tumbling. Then they disappeared to the basement to test their skills at Wii Karaoke and some kind of rock band fantasy. But the big hit, by the end of the evening, was an improvised i-spy, hide and seek game staged in and out of the garden and throughout the house. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">It was stunning to see the difference the years have made. The girls seemed especially happy, as if they'd come into their own. They were healthy, strong, boisterous, sassy, and happy, hanging on us parents with an easy sense of entitlement. We might as well have been door posts planted for their pleasure. They rammed, tugged, poked, pulled, and punched at us playfully. We smiled back, caressing a head, stroking an arm, patting a bottom, exercising a parent's prerogative.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">It was late in the evening by the time we said our good byes and thanked everyone. My daughter had been running non-stop, laughing, popping in and out of our host's house, clustered together with the gang of girls. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She was either coming down with swine flu -- or she'd had a good time. On the drive back to our hotel, I checked in:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"Did you enjoy the reunion?" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"Yeah Mom. It was great. It was awesome!"<br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">"<em>Awesome</em>, huh? Well, that's good news. I'm glad we came." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"Yeah. Me too. And, guess what Mom?" She whispered: "I'm not supposed to tell you this -- so don't say a word to the other parents -- but I <em>just have </em>to tell you --"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>(What mom doesn't love this?) </em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"What's that honey?" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"We were aliens! We decided to pretend all the Chinese girls were aliens. And, we were hiding and spying on the parents!"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"Nooo way. Too funny."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">We talked on, sharing impressions of the night. Nostalgia got the better of me and I shared a confession, dead certain the other moms felt exactly the same way -- and would have felt the same way again, even if the match between girls and parents had somehow played out differently. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"You know honey... I love each and every one of you girls. We're all family in a sense. Our lives are connected. But I feel blessed cause somehow I had the amazing good fortune of becoming <em>your </em>mom. I love being your mom."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">She was quiet a moment. "But you know.... you're <em>not</em> my mom."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">My heart lurched and froze for a nanosecond. Did the reunion trigger something? <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-pack.html">Were we headed back to the exchanges of last spring</a>? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"No..?" I asked weakly. I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw her raising her palms upward. She looked at me -- like I was slow.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"I just TOLD you! I'm an <em>ALIEN</em>!" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">I laughed. Apologized. And resumed breathing.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391227439371941282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOmzjCTN1W2YSceID7HJ7PeIzRsiFq_FW4miUENdmQWIqpxTSukY58c7reFxYX_Bz3Lx7wSFBn_jjJtaut3txADXXvZDHuYLkr6VWpSN0E7fGdmIIp4Cd2BmCvyY5I-ZO0YBL2nyVyGU/s320/Tophat+alien.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 227px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
<span style="color: black;">Sometimes, just sometimes, </span><span style="color: black;">an alien is <em>just</em> an alien.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/10/finding-home-feeling-at-home-one.html"></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-57102885584948140702009-10-07T10:24:00.000-07:002009-10-22T16:27:55.610-07:00Transracial Adoption: Learning to See a World Full of ColorMy last post offered <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/10/finding-home-feeling-at-home-one.html">a description of one adult adoptee's struggles with family</a>, with her sense of belonging, with identity. The film trailer for "<a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html">Adopted</a>" shows Jen trying to explain her struggles to her mother who, in the film, battles a terminal illness.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/23XO1dwMTUk&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/23XO1dwMTUk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Jen's story is enough to keep any parent of a transracially adopted child awake at night. But, as difficult as it is to watch, "<a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html">Adopted</a>" heightened my awareness. As an adoptive parent to a child of a minority race, an essential part of my job is to acknowledge and address the challenges that come with being a mixed race family.<br /><br />Thankfully, in my search to learn more, after viewing “<a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html">Adopted</a>,” I came across another video.<br /><br />Judy and Aaron Stigger share a very different story -- one with a far happier outcome. This isn't to discount Jen Fero's story. But stories like Aaron Stigger's are also important. To make us smile. To help us further understand. To give us hope.<br /><br />This 4 minute video was originally posted back in January 2009 by <a href="http://adoptionlearningpartners.org/our_community.cfm">Adoption Learning Partners (ALP)</a>, an educational organization whose primary goal is to have a "positive measurable impact on adoption outcomes." ALP offers a variety of web-based courses for adoptive parents and professionals, but there's also a wealth of free information and other resources if you dig about on their site and check out their <a href="http://adoptionlearningpartners.org/our_community.cfm">"Community" page</a>.<br /><br />I love the message in this video that mother and son, Judy and Aaron Stigger, have to offer. Perhaps just as important as the verbal message is the body language, the clear, easy affection you see between mother and son.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LTZwUks_wFE&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LTZwUks_wFE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Judy Stigger, by the way, was one of ALP's founders (which officially makes me a fan.) <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12136864">Judy and Aaron also did an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, back in July 2007, sharing their experiences and insights on transracial adoption</a>. There's a great <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12136864">summary write-up of the interview on the NPR website</a>, or better still, you can <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12136864">listen to the interview</a>, or <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=12136864">read the transcript</a>. (NPR has done a number of pieces on transracial adoptions and there are several terrific links on this site.)<br /><br />In the on-air interview, Judy shares one of the ways she used to respond to the classically intrusive comments adoptive families so often encounter: "People would say, 'Do you have any real children?" She'd turn to her son, Aaron, and say, "No, I just have this plastic one." Aaron, playing along, would in turn hold out his arms and sing, "Ta-da!" Judy taught her son by example, defusing an otherwise potentially awkward moment with humor -- while also communicating the thoughtlessness of the question.<br /><br />Aaron, also present for the interview, describes his memories of growing up, of not wanting to stick out, not wanting to be different, appreciating the opportunities he had to know, and make friends with other kids, other people, of color. This prompts Steve Inskeep to turn to Judy and ask how much thought she put into this. Judy credits a moment she experienced with her daughter (also adopted, also bi-racial):<br /><br />"When she was about eight, we spread across the bed all the congratulations cards we'd gotten when we adopted her, because now she could read them. And then she looked at me and just got this <em>pain</em> wash across her face, and said, 'Mom, was I supposed to be white?' And I looked at the cards and realized <em>every</em> one of them had a little white baby face on it. And it struck me that this parenting business wasn't going to be about not being prejudiced. It was going to be about being inclusive."<br /><br />In time, Judy began sending holiday cards to family and friends featuring people of color. One day, her daughter received an Easter card from Judy's mother. Her daughter took the card up to her room to read it in private -- but returned, flying down the stairs, holding the card out in front of her for her mother to see. The card showed a risen Christ, black, muscled, with dreadlocks. Judy's daughter said, "My grandma loves me!"<br /><br />Further on in the interview Judy describes another moment of heightened awareness. She’d gone to attend one of Aaron's performances when he was part of a black theater group his freshman year in college. Walking into the theater, Judy realized she was one of the few white people in the audience. She realized how she stuck out, how exposed she felt -- and then she thought this is how her children must feel, as minorities, living, moving, and breathing in a predominantly white world. At this point, Aaron can't jump in fast enough. He explains, eagerly, emphatically, that this is an issue for all transracially adopted kids, for that matter, for all minorities. "Thank you! Thank you!" he exhales. "<em>That </em>right <em>there </em>needs to be on every program nation-wide!"<br /><br />The message from both Judy and Aaron (and Jen as well) is that no child growing up likes or wants to stick out or be different. Children of color need friends, neighbors, and role models of color -- both in their immediate world and in the imagery, the media, that surround them. As caucasian parents with children of color, we need to support our children, to be as inclusive as we can. We can't limit ourselves to a world of white privilege.<br /><br />As Judy puts it: "You need to see the world in color."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-89420850886132017912009-10-02T16:06:00.000-07:002009-11-10T08:44:04.287-08:00Finding Home, Feeling at Home -- An Adult Adoptee's Painful Story<span style="color:#000000;">Nine year old tidbit for the day:<br /><br />"Hey Mom! Did you know if you whisper --" she drops her voice a notch below audible and, with exaggerated precision, mouths: "'E-le-phant shoes,' -- people think you're saying 'I love you!'"<br /><br />This pleases her. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br />My daughter is full of good humor and snappy comebacks these days while I've been scrambling to launch her back into the school year and launch myself, full force, back into the job hunt. We've had a lot going on. Last week, the stress got the better of me. Out of patience, I launched into a lecture and told her if she couldn't learn to help around the house and clean up the trail of mess she leaves behind -- in the front hall, on the couch, on the dining room table, all over the kitchen counter -- and <em>find a home</em> for each and every one of her belongings, I'd have to assume they were leftovers. <em>Trash</em>. Oh, yes. The 18 origami cranes that lay for the past two days littered about the piano bench like leaves in the yard? Trash. Obviously trash.<br /><br />She stammered, looking for the right response. "But, but... they're <em>not </em>trash! That, that... that <em>is</em> their home! It... it's... it's a <em>display, </em>Mom."</span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><span style="color:#000000;">The corners of her mouth twitch and a wry smile escapes at this unexpected flash of creativity. I too am taken by surprise, and explode with a belly laugh. The cranes earn a reprieve and she quickly sweeps them into a nearby drawer.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 261px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 190px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389709393122632562" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYcBSVxsIGGNdS4Ry1J6Ma_yOx0GvGNmlqcmrTWT9BqZ1NcFBeqoTF2Nlo4_DS5vXllu_TJ9i63zONIkxWYwOacjceE_Yo3UFhGG06x7PB0rE61MtT8U_DzbCZzZymWnjnbVdV7vYzeNk/s320/Origami-crane.jpg" /><br />We are back to innocent, happy days once more. But, in my off hours here and there, I continue the adoptive parents' journey in due diligence. Two weeks ago, <a href="http://www.koreanfocus.org/">a Korean adoptive parenting group (Korea Focus)</a> and our local <a href="http://www.fwcc.org/">FCC (Families with Children from China)</a> organization sponsored the showing of <a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html">Point Made Films' documentary "Adopted."</a> And so it was, thanks to an invitation and prompting from one my blog readers (Thank you Laura) I found myself with a gathering of 15 or so other adoptive parents in a well lit church basement one Tuesday evening.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.pointmade.com/documentaries.html"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 219px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 305px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389710096260654002" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZnLwbXOFHK3TmjNBNzoMv0mDU5ff8K4QOUU2EEZ6s9UA7H1ZvvA0EH8Ld3UXdv2lc89bBcpxPguZ_KYoWWIm4fnMgcOLKMyNprfx8cOwbW0IRAWpjYTlqwVmP0lfhc_nifnqbEbJm79g/s320/Adopted+dvd-cover.png" /></a><span style="color:#000000;">According to the Point Made Films' web site, "'Adopted' reveals the grit rather than the glamor of transracial adoption."</span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The film is controversial and it's easy to see why.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">We meet John and Jacqui Trainer of New Hampshire. They are just beginning their adoption journey and they're filled with great hope and joy at the prospect of becoming parents. They want to do the right thing by their child. There's no doubt they're completely committed and will love their daughter deeply. At the same time, it's clear they have no concept of the issues and challenges involved in transracial adoption. These issues and challenges are highlighted by Jen Fero, a 32 year old Korean born woman, adopted and raised in the late 70's and early 80's by a loving Euro American family in a small Oregon town. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Jen is the dominant voice in the film and, as she looks back, sharing her experience, she raises a number of blunt, difficult questions not only for her own adoptive, now terminally ill parents -- but for other adoptive parents, particularly those with children of differing racial backgrounds. </span><span style="color:#000000;">Jen narrates her story and shares how</span> <span style="color:#000000;">early on she came to put on a game face, to present herself to her family, to the broader world, as the happy, funny, affectionate daughter she thought her family wanted.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 188px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 143px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389711420763826610" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTi4xmx8TwQLQlnsIvxXYPVb0aDXr1Zt-ATof1CVGajEhj2vFjI4VMqH4q5cGbifxPOkgrCcr44rTS9LJlCZY_Br70B0h2S8DH1lQDaA1AznxCmETogFhEdsJuUgIAao1pv95u5QQqSmA/s320/Happy+face.jpg" /></span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Underneath this veneer, she struggled. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">As a child, Jen heard again and again from people in her community what a "lucky" girl she was. But Jen didn't feel lucky. As much as she loved her adoptive parents, she felt loss and sadness over her abandonment by her Korean family. Jen's adoptive family emphasized their love and sense of good fortune in having her as their daughter -- but her losses were never referenced or acknowledged. Jen feared disappointing her parents, contradicting their joy. She felt she <em>ought</em> to be happy. </span><span style="color:#000000;">Unable to discuss or explore the possible reasons behind her abandonment, Jen was left with a nagging vulnerability. What if she failed to please her adoptive family? </span><span style="color:#000000;">She assumed a kind of vigilance, striving to please and placate her family. She learned to deny her more challenging, difficult feelings. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Growing up in a white family and predominantly white community, Jen identified with those around her. Since Jen's parents believed love was more important than race, they chose not to discuss racial differences. But -- if there's an elephant in the room and no one mentions the elephant -- will the elephant disappear? Jen was left to wrestle with the differences that announced themselves in the mirror each morning. The image of her own uniquely Asian face, her eyes, her nose, her skin tone, created a dissonance within her. When she was out in the neighborhood, in the school yard, on the playground, other children saw these differences too and they teased and taunted her. Jen felt ashamed. Lacking any kind of dialog at home, she had no words, no language, no safe harbor, place, or person to confide her troubles.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Remarks not only from other children but from others, elsewhere, over the years, made Jen aware there were people who didn't view her as fully American. Jen yearned to return "home" to Korea. But when she traveled to Korea, she found she was far more American than Korean -- and Koreans saw this too. When Jen moved away from her hometown to a larger city for work, she struggled to feel fully accepted within white communities -- but also had difficulty feeling a sense of belonging with other Korean Americans. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">In the film, Jen makes an earnest effort to communicate her struggles and bridge the connection with her terminally ill parents. But the message they have failed her is too much and perhaps, too late, and too painful for them to take in. They don't understand and Jen feels even more alone. She succombs to anti-depressants and pain killers and is forced to leave her terminally ill parents to commit to her own self care, to </span><span style="color:#000000;">enter a rehabillitation program.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Watching "Adopted," I felt a little like Ebenezer Scrooge witnessing the slow parade of ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. I remembered the dark moment Scrooge stood perched at the edge of what would prove to be his grave, afraid to peer over and confront the worst.</span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /><br /></span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><span style="color:#000000;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 196px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 227px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389712490357286162" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQnQnqa045SPbge55-e9bwIbGWZLRXjhuseYbX6KnIfY_JsrHu45FM1XAcqvrKStsGF9It5fvOxYhWjWTB2vYnCZzEepI0W86jN_A13DXWi_SZ8oTH8Cq2Fid7lasaLFJ1_VyTln0U3Zs/s320/futureScrooge.jpg" /> </span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Was Jen's fate my daughter's fate? Our fate? There was still time. What more could I, can I do, here in the present, to re-cast our future? </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I'm being a tad melodramatic. But there's no denying Jen's story is tragic. By all appearances, her parents were loving, well meaning people. It took great courage for Jen as well as her parents to allow the film makers into their home, to share their story, and offer the seeds of hard-won wisdom.<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#000000;">I think there were two distinctly different issues at stake for Jen. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The first problem was that Jen was never encouraged or given the opportunity to recognize her own unique story -- and losses -- as a separate, legitimate reality apart from her adoptive parents' story -- their journey and joy in adopting and raising their daughter. Jen sensed her sadness and grief at losing her birth parents posed a threat or, at the very least, would prove hurtful to her parents. So she bottled up her sadness. As she grew older, as the pain persisted, she tried to numb it, then medicate it away.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">As a community, as adoptive parents, we've learned how important it is to help our children own and process their stories -- including their losses. We live with the irony that our children's greatest loss is the basis for our joy: their presence in our lives. As threatening as that may feel, we have to support our children, to help them grieve one family so they are free to celebrate the next. Jen's experience is, in part, a desperate cry for this recognition and validation.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The second issue Jen wrestled with is, I think, even more complex.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Jen’s well meaning parents failed to recognize and address the challenges that come with being a mixed race family. To be fair, I think the Feros followed the beliefs of their generation. Once you adopted, you treated your child as if s/he were -- had always been -- your own. Love and acceptance trumped dislocation or differences. To acknowledge the rift or difference threatened the fantasy the bond could be re-made, perfect and whole. So families didn’t discuss abandonment, adoption -- or race. Korean adult adoptees like Jen have taught us the price of this denial.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Listening to Jen, I couldn’t help wondering if her struggle to fit in was unique to her experience as a transracial adoptee – or part of the broader experience of persons of color, of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in this country. Friends of mine raised by immigrant parents, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Russian, have shared childhood memories of not fitting in, of being the outsider, living betwixt and between two cultures, the culture of their parents' generation versus that of the American school yard and the media. Those of my friends who were happiest seemed to have found a way to mix and move comfortably in both worlds, having made their peace, even taking pride in a hybrid identity.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Is it possible Jens’ struggles to fit in were more authentically Korean American, or Asian American, than she realized?</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">As for adoptive parents, how many of us truly acknowledge, or understand that, when we adopt a child of another race, we become a family of color? </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">When I first made my decision to adopt my daughter, I threw myself into reading and learning everything I could about China. I developed a deep, one could argue naïvely romantic fascination for its difficult history, politics, and people. Now, as much as I know it’s helpful to give my daughter a sense of pride in her birth country, I see there are many more layers to my job.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">White adoptive parents have only known the world of white privilege. We have no idea what it feels like to walk about in someone else’s skin, to enter a classroom, apply for a job, shop at the local mall or museum, wander a city street and greet the world with a face that isn’t Euro American -- but is Asian American, Latin American, or African American. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">We are blind and yet, we need to learn more, read more, reach out more, if we are to help our children feel at home, with a mix of faces, in a variety of places. </span><span style="color:#000000;"><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 259px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 230px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389715767378167122" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJDz0PhG148jdCZzi2CIZI1bIYyRn2f3xuNKAAlJRuEd9d9BI3UjV88WEFp62p2eoBO2l7fN9juvwPyIYEtrJ6i4fSaCbmCFo8POkaIF6LSMVLKyJ433KoltrOi7-fm5pJZ5ELYSHqo0/s320/American+eagle.jpg" /></span><br /><span style="font-size:0;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-62544500794426898872009-08-19T10:04:00.000-07:002009-09-21T09:30:35.283-07:00"What's My Heritage: International Adoptions & the Culture Debate"<div></div><br />First, an apology. I am woefully overdue in posting here at <em>Pack of Three</em>. The good news is that all is well with our happy pack. In fact, as much as the past school year had its <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html">challenges</a>, the summer seems to have delivered -- in direct opposition and proportion to the school year -- more than its share of joys. My daughter's favorite t-shirt and personal motto these days? <em>Life is Good.</em><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 267px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5371726202428010866" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrRKRpSA1cOJw8U7zQj8X2ifa6LKCyDrbLy3J-ljLOWTR5TWWi7uTsZ9vauyUjkTfmuPyKztylInfrlQrTLtrW2sARGoZj7fTEwT3habaG330Lp4iAvxz4vz9uNl6dkeEVAnYjx0gudn8/s320/Life+is+good+-+2.jpg" /><br />I have to concur. I'm not immune to a hormonal moment or two, but the truth is, its all too easy to forget and take for granted just how blessed we are.<br /><br />Until the school year is well underway (and mom makes more progress on the job front,) I won't have a lot of time for blog posts. Nevertheless, I had to check in and share a link to a wonderfully insightful, honest, thought-provoking article written by Martha Nichols, published this summer in BRAIN, CHILD: "<a href="http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/summer2009_nichols.asp">What's My Heritage: International Adoptions and the Culture Debate</a>."<br /><br />Martha and her husband adopted their son Nicholas from Vietnam in 2003. She writes about Nicholas' ambivalence toward his birth country and culture and, more specifically, writes about her own struggle to find the right balance in helping acquaint her son (and family) with Nicholas' birth country and culture, addressing thorny issues of race and identity.<br /><br /><em>How much should we do as parents? How far do you take it -- or push it? </em><br /><br />It's a balancing act most parents of internationally adopted children struggle with. We know, based on the overwhelming evidence shared by previous generations of Korean-American adoptees, that we ignore these questions of race and culture at our child's peril. But Nichols raises another interesting question: Has the current generation of parents of internationally adopted children really figured out the best or healthiest way to address these issues? The options -- and pitfalls -- are many.<br /><br />Some families purchase cheese-y costumes and trinkets. Others enroll their children in a myriad of dance classes, language classes, craft classes, caligraphy classes, even martial arts classes. Others drop in once a year for a token New Year's or other celebration. These efforts are all made in earnest. But Nichols asks the uncomfortable question if culture is really a matter of consuming a couple of commercial pre-packaged trinkets, if its a series of classes, a one-time event, or an annual weekend retreat.<br /><br />How many of us reach for these things as quick, easy answers so, in busy, overscheduled lives, we can assuage a guilty conscience and check off the "culture" box? Nichols calls it "Culture-lite."<br /><br />My guess is most adoptive parents sense, like Nichols, that culture and identity tend to be something both more subtle -- and more elusive, something that's woven into everyday life. It's the language we speak, the foods we eat, the faces we see, the little day in and day out, or seasonal, rituals.<br /><br />So how do we as parents capture something as elusive as this and make it accessible to our children, especially when that second culture may be as foreign to us as it is to our children?<br /><br />Nichols acknowledges that an imperfect effort is far better than no effort. And then, its important to look for those opportunities to make that culture -- in one form or another -- a more natural part of everyday life. Beyond that, for every child, for every family, the answers will be different. In the end, as parents, its our job to try and help our children bridge the gap and navigate a story that produces that mixed sense of identity and belonging. <br /><br />At the very least, it takes a lot of listening, a lot of loving, along with a willingness to stretch beyond our normal comfort zone.<br /><br />Nichols does a wonderful, thoughtful job exploring these issues.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-86569205943814105832009-07-04T06:34:00.000-07:002009-07-07T11:52:54.751-07:00Born in China, Adopted & Raised in America: Betwixt and Between?<span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I was thinking these were halcyon days.</span><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355510816589092626" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXdnWwo4i-mbn5rR7z0ecUJUmf88yVLYNGZiEId3EfRuHZCwcREo7kcHAsvKmetCnQb4OewIrluB69Dvp-nJWs7qA03-SXiafQ8pRjIOMPWNCzMPtxaE5B3y_SV_2Xdd0ZzcSMgQ-vkY/s320/Lemonade+Stand+with+Cookies.jpg" /> <div><span style="color:#000000;">My daughter has been in such a happy place of late and, like many parents, when my child is happy, I am happy. I've already had a few, fleeting moments foreshadowing what's to come in the teen years but for now, we're back to the ebullient innocence of earlier times. Given a quick peek at what's to come, I fantasize and think:</span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#000000;">Can't I just hit the pause button now? </span></em></div><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I want to pickle and preserve these precious moments. Catch them, bottle them.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;">It's been a busy, social start to summer. Visiting with friends, my daughter discovered a newfound passion: <em>Monopoly</em>. She loves to be the banker and now, even when there's no one to play, she sits and counts the money.</span></div><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355517085651552658" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL3tAjz_m3e1o_PE88f_3RoGHyt2v_GvEGjjFhFHmP2diDvG10bEDiOChl2zSPIWYvarJedXuK_H8l3GW0RNp7ZFGhllbOKYL-9hVtvmy0BsaBrVlLLKpUjWpzbI8KewPsigPNJUIIlNA/s320/Monopoly+board.jpg" /><br /><div></div><div><span style="color:#000000;">We staged a lemonade stand on two different days. The first, a sunny Saturday, she and a mutually determined friend set up shop. They sat outside on our street corner, hawking their wares from 11am to 5pm, determined to stay till the last Tollhouse cookie, the last drop of lemonade, was gone. They brought in a whopping $71 and decided (completely on their own) to keep $10 each -- and donate the remaining $51 to the Humane Society (...boasts a proud mom.) The second time around, the day was hotter, the traffic slower, her friend, a little less motivated. Still after 2+ hours minding the store, they earned $30, kept $1.50 a piece, and reserved $27 for the Audubon Society. (My daughter feels a strong affinity for the animal world.)</span></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">We've gone on more and more bike rides and, last week, biked to and from her basketball camp.</span><br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 269px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355574458195778482" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOTqz7RCRO6p_0H1F4B6UdWiWC1n6uhY6enbeCwkXwoGJkUW3yjTBzkIlW501-aXkWQOT3RESc1oYKbyvDKGweZLXAwRUBOr7qAOz7e93uZp8tqc3VmsbCL1GkTrVClDjqYcZ2S3rfPc/s320/Biker+girl.jpg" /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">This week is soccer camp. Along with the beautiful weather, we've enjoyed watermelon fests, hula hooping contests, cookie bakes, swim parties, potlucks, and sleepovers. On rainy days and lazy nights, we've drunk in films like <em>Anne of Green Gables</em> (check out the Kevin O'Sullivan production, it's wonderful) <em>The Heart of the Game</em> (yes, a girls' basketball film) and even some old classics. On deck from the library? Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in <em>Bringing Up Baby </em>(1938). </span><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#000000;">This past Saturday, for the 4th of July, we enjoyed various visits with friends, then biked to a local park to take in the fireworks. My daughter chose to dress in red, white, and blue. (<em>If you count my underwear, Mom</em>.) </span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;">An all-American childhood, right? Halcyon days, right? </span></p><span style="color:#000000;">So why did I wake up at 5:30am late last week with this nagging, unsettled feeling? </span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I've got to stop reading the <em>New York Times</em> and the other blogs and groups I follow just before bed.</span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I'd been tracking <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoptionparenting/?yguid=396155026">the Adoptionparenting group on Yahoo</a>. The current topic (there's a new one every two weeks) has sparked a lively debate. The subject is "On Culture and Belonging." As the debate unfolded, parents argued, some quite adamantly, that no matter what we do, as multi-racial families, we -- our kids -- will always straddle two worlds. Many argued, with increasing passion, that, as parents, we have a responsibility to acquaint, even immerse, our children in their birth culture, giving them a sense of connection and belonging to combat the day they run into the inevitable confusion, questions, or push back as to where or what group they rightly belong. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Now, my daughter and I attend FCC (Families with Children from China) celebrations. She is learning Mandarin, and we have friends (happenstance -- not calculation) of various ethnic groups, races, and religions. The problem is, short of moving to China, I am -- like a huge percentage of adoptive American parents of Chinese children -- Caucasian. I lack the kind of deep familiarity with Chinese culture that might help me pass the culture on to my child in a way that's both layered and authentic. I realize too, as much as she's of Chinese birth and descent, she is now deeply American.</span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The argument made by the folks in this discussion group is that, if history is any kind of yardstick, our children will end up with no clear sense of belonging, or worse, rejected, at risk, betwixt and between.</span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Sigh... </span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Perhaps naively, a part of me thought, given this country's changing, increasingly varied demographic, <em>Aren't we all, in one way or another, to varying degrees, betwixt and between? </em>And, don't we have more and more examples of individuals showing it's possible to be of a different, or mixed, racial, or ethnic origin -- and still belong? Perhaps, even lead? (I'm thinking of our President for one.)</span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I was struggling with this question in my head and then, late Thursday, another wrinkle:</span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">David Brooks published his latest <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/opinion/03brooks.html?em"><em>New York Times</em> column titled, "</a></span><span style="color:#000000;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/opinion/03brooks.html?em">Chinese Fireworks Display</a></span><span style="color:#000000;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/opinion/03brooks.html?em">.</a>" Brooks recently attended the Aspen Ideas Festival (<em>Does he have a cool job or what?</em>) Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor, had presented his views on the changing state of the world. China and the US, quite recently, enjoyed a happy, "symbiotic" relationship. From 1995 to 2005, "China did the making, ...the US did the buying." We spent. China prospered, and saved. The Chinese invested their savings in the safest place available: with the US government. They loaned us back the money we spent. We chose to spend and spend again. The Chinese savings rate rose from 30% to 45%, The US savings rate declined from 5% -- to zero. </span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Our country is now going bankrupt (okay, strike "going") while the Chinese recognize they can no longer rely on us either to fuel their growth -- or provide a secure place to invest their savings. </span><span style="color:#000000;">China is forging its own way and looking to decrease its reliance on the US. According to Ferguson, </span><span style="color:#000000;">"The frictions are building and will lead to divorce, conflict, and potential catastrophe..." Worse, "Chinese nationalism is also on the rise... The Chinese are acquiring resources all around the world and with them, willy-nilly, an overseas empire that threatens US interests... " </span></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 232px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355589767529877298" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDbYQjqB-438vVuyyi8wEAyMg0m5lsHcz65Yiju4Jc2kPLc15eOVcydyTGramQ6ItrgwV7tAhfpjRLm2CZOHcFVDBgzUkQUkX9rLd5ttJBaXqK6iLTO_Hnf8Nfh4BVl7cpJeESCFlzZyE/s320/Chinese+fireworks.jpg" /> <span style="color:#000000;">Ferguson compares China to Kaiser Wilhem's Germany in the years preceding World War I: "a growing, aggressive, nationalistic power whose ambitions will tear through pre-existing commercial ties and historic friendships." The US, on the other hand, appears unable to change and rein in its profligate ways. (Think: Rome ...in its waning days.) </span><br /><div></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">It's a frightening scenario. Certainly, there are others (Brooks writes about them too) who expect and paint a more positive picture. But it's the first one that haunts me. In the past year alone, China has clearly been flexing its muscle with a brutal crackdown against the Tibetans, an aggressive media black-out on the 20th anniversary of Tiananman Square or, just today, with another violent crackdown in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.</span><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">If our two countries are on a collision course, where will this leave America's Chinese born daughters?</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;">Adolescence, it seems, may be the least of my worries. </span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Pickle, anyone?</span><br /></div><div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 212px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355510105830010226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72rU03PSY2m5Lx85324iq5TT1nLPRSnYoF0lY7K_rCkvEroPFfq0yBfrSNPS68wPh___3KzRjPFRc-NM-gvXfznsyNgdL4sHxrgSn6kI_cNqFA-ykNfGNVO1Dsg0pOCzhQb0g5vPF4wk/s320/Pickle+jar.jpg" /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-1704425571667550892009-06-21T14:06:00.000-07:002009-06-22T21:11:40.633-07:00Wrestling with the Daddy IssueEven as I was <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-i-came-to-my-decision.html">making my decision to adopt my daughter from China</a>, I pondered if it was fair to adopt a child when I couldn't offer the complete package, both a mom and a dad.<br /><br /><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 230px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349942613999443826" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPo9xmRptF_WbWR-HMUId98iBSRUGHiyUk_cm_-5zcyC-Y0uOenRlZ08NkDWTslIVN-sPxpxqFRGduKRfaabfRwrexigw8L4tmtzbXfm-1Ld3Nl_FYytJiwS3gaCIbYT6srvN0SkIc2bw/s320/Bosom+buds.jpg" /> Friends argued a loving mother, a warm, stable home life, and extended family and friends were better than the alternative, institutional life, or nothing at all. I bought into their arguments and, at the same time, told myself there was always the possibility I might still meet someone wonderful. I had the issue neatly and rationally sorted out in my mind -- until I viewed the question from the other side.<br /><br />In those first few days and weeks, as I held my daughter in my arms, as I looked into her innocent, cherubic-like face, as I felt the weight of her body, the rhythm of her breath, and smelled her powdery, baby-like scent, the reality of what I'd done sank in -- in a different, decidedly more visceral way. This little bundle of life was mine. All mine. Her life, her health, her most basic needs, her happiness, now lay in my hands. As the days unfolded, a powerful new instinct flooded my veins and, as it did, one of the more troubling thoughts that creeped back into my mind was: </p><p><em>Have I done something really selfish?</em><br /><br />In my more vulnerable moments, the question haunted me. Could I really be all she needed me to be? But then reality, the relentless demands of everyday life with a baby, prevailed. The flow of her life merged with mine in a single, unending blur of her sleeping, waking, eating, peeing, pooping and sleeping . We played, we laughed, and my daughter blossomed.<br /><br />It wasn't till several years later, when I was driving her home from pre-school one day, that she first raised the issue herself. It seemed to come out of nowhere. One moment the car was quiet. The next moment, she said it:<br /><br /><em>I wish I had a Dad</em>.<br /></p><br /><div>The blood drained from my fingers while my grip on the steering wheel tightened. My body went cold and I proceeded to flood my daughter with empathy, reflections, ideas, and suggestions. I babbled on for a good five minutes -- till I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed my daughter looking out the window, watching the scenery, humming. She was three, maybe four. My words had washed right past her.</div><br /><div>I'd overlaid an innocent comment, devoid of deeper meaning, with the backlog of my own emotional baggage. I replayed our exchange and it occurred to me -- with respect to dads everywhere -- that in that particular moment, she could have just as easily said, <em>I wish I had a Barbie doll. </em></div><br /><div>I realized I needed to dump the baggage, listen more carefully, take a deep breath, ask more questions, and try and respond to the place my daughter was coming from. </div><br /><div>We've been through several stages of the Daddy Issue since. </div><br /><div>At first she wanted a dad because she figured this was something other kids had. Then,<em> </em>she wanted a dad because she didn't want to be different. She grew tired of the same question over and over (<em>You don't have a dad?!) </em>At one point, she tried telling a pre-school friend she actually had a dad. But, as quickly as she created him, she killed him off. (<em>Oh, but he died.</em>) </div><br /><div>It's only been in more recent years that my daughter -- through stories, books, observation, time with family and friends -- has truly come to understand what having a dad is, or can be, about. </div><br /><div>Having a dad, I think, in whole, or in part, means having an adult male in your family, in your life, who loves you, who's there for you, who makes you feel special, who talks with you, spends time with you, teaches you, flirts with you, even wrestles with you. He takes you on special outings and buys you the treats your mother won't. He watches movies, plays pool, or pinball, or other silly games with you. He hugs you, cheers for you, roots for you, and is, generally speaking, crazy for you.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5-RRtAz3qM9XGlv2HIKW_pTX29z9ZlBfmhs50AXoDxuHNXqpPy7EYbXATawzEKPY7pf7tkJQptAID3Cciaht7ExmT1ZcfA8wxi-G1G304cfBWLeUNfgK9bm2mZXAwB8Qh6Y2YwCEvLo/s1600-h/Climber+Sandy+-+b.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 170px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349932371252587570" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5-RRtAz3qM9XGlv2HIKW_pTX29z9ZlBfmhs50AXoDxuHNXqpPy7EYbXATawzEKPY7pf7tkJQptAID3Cciaht7ExmT1ZcfA8wxi-G1G304cfBWLeUNfgK9bm2mZXAwB8Qh6Y2YwCEvLo/s320/Climber+Sandy+-+b.jpg" /></a>Miraculously, in the same time period that marked my daughter's growing awareness and need, my brother stepped into the void. </div><br /><div></div><div>He's a free-wheeling bachelor and lives less than a mile away. He's a software guy, an engineer-type, a fix-anything, project-manage, tech-savvy kind of guy. He's a skier, a scrambler, a camper, a climber and, yes -- a bit of a bar-fly. But, in my book, he's just a hair's notch below God. He's become a surrogate dad to my daughter. He's not here at the house every day, but we see him most every week. He stops by for dinner, for brunch, or simply to "hang." He's known my daughter since she first came home but it's really, in the past few years, they've grown increasingly close. He helped teach her how to ride a two-wheeler and now, takes her out biking, canoeing, swimming and skiing. They cook together, carve Halloween pumpkins together, go to street fairs and movies together. He's there at Christmas and on Father's Day, and for special school performances. If work takes him to Mexico, India, or China, he returns home with posters, trinkets, and toys, with flowing paisley patterned skirts, even embroidered blouses. </div><br /><div></div><div>My daughter is not a natural hugger. She likes her physical space. But when her uncle arrives, she flies toward the door and into his arms. He scoops her up, lifts her high to the ceiling, then hugs her tight. He's her hero and rightly so. I get sappy and sentimental when I try to thank him, to tell him just what that means to me, to her, that he loves her, that he's there for her. He just tells me, <em>Oh, stop. You're wet.</em> And he's right. But, in recognition of Father's Day, I'd like to honor not only the dads out there (mine included,) but all the cool surrogate dads, the brothers, uncles, and incredible friends, who step into the void to help a child feel loved and special and all the more whole.<br /></div><div><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 187px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 346px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349933298811893522" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPVIp2a_lNpFQarwj9cVheS3hNCacJqJTuRIGygrtLXvIAuZ1GIkMpSwToeZNYM_lQjXRg0a7N1lQTfZUduUNqwwOkzCrfzydqbx4iZCKdSsnE6z5VzPjoTELP_piE3Eu-CAmLzx2kBo/s320/Arm+in+arm+with+my+uncle.jpg" />And, to one very special uncle, with a clear, dry-eye, I offer a huge, humble, heartfelt:<br /></div><div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 58px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349932457516476450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDkP3bptzjgtAHa0CW9pfQ39qlMVVFNOFlcqxapJK82iZS-f-lvHATfJC3X9jOPSVY03UE1ZQZWB0-o47caiIskuLbBtIMv59mRQCsBTnDgvsbFo1kmjm9gIkvzYb3ChQKu2FOgNNopNE/s320/Thank+you.jpg" /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-28345691958733332482009-06-14T14:22:00.000-07:002009-06-18T10:05:51.392-07:00When I Told My Parents I Planned To Adopt<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 210px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347363160142729602" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdRddgbwb4FWxUY92xvpii3djwzThLIi4fANSVajUO3eDvvk9yIUKZH83b3UHlsft0QKPvhKEVHl5MCs4WfuXryaqIJx80xsqjMjxBaJlPcmNBFcJUYKA37VxiRjqUmqL6zwx-0IrFgjA/s320/red+rotary+phone.jpg" /> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;color:#000000;">Broad beams of sunlight streamed in through the front windows of the house washing over the living room, creating a sense of light, airy openness. </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;">It was a Sunday afternoon in the summer of ‘99. I was wandering about my living room running my hand over the familiar, well-loved contents and contours of my home while, phone pressed to my ear, I chatted with my parents. They live on the East coast. I’m on the West coast. I don’t remember the range of subjects we covered, but as the conversation wound down, it occurred to me it might be wise to let my parents in on the recent drift in my thinking.</span> </span><br /><br /></span><div><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Hey Mom, Dad,… you know I’ve talked about adopting a little girl from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><?xml:namespace prefix = u1 /><u1:place st="on"><u1:country-region st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region></span></span></span></u1:country-region></u1:place><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. </span></i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">I stopped, sat down on the couch, leaned forward, and rested my elbows onto my knees. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="color:#000000;">Well... I probably should tell you… I think I’m ready. I’m going to do it.</span> </i></span></span></div><em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></em><div><br /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">They knew I’d been thinking about it, but up to this point, it had only been an idea. One of many vague possibilities out in the ether.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">The line was quiet for a moment. My father spoke first, slowly and thoughtfully. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="color:#000000;">Well, this is your decision. Whatever you decide, you know we love you. We’re proud of you. And we support you.</span> </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div><br /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I was forty and this was my father’s answer to most things. Love, acceptance, support. He saw my sister, brother, and me as adults. He expected us to make morally sound, responsible choices, but our lives were our own.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">My mother was a little different, a little more vested in our decisions, a little more outspoken. </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">This could be a double-edged sword. </span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;">I waited for her to speak now, and when she did, it was with uncharacteristic restraint. Her voice sounded deeper, as if her throat had gone tight. Her words came in short, measured increments. Which is a little like imagining <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on"><u1:place st="on"><u1:placename st="on">Niagra</st1:placename></u1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on"><u1:placetype st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place></span></span></span></u1:placetype></u1:place><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> slowing. To a drip.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span><br /></span></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 143px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 196px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347366541431810274" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCl9suakGaOFvGhhdN3VEjihbiMiD2B3hwPK8yvFoJJBRmAxRjZnM54WH07IT7ZkbAhvFksXbhCE27_l-5KFuwnLYS_4RARWZHUp-ZMmOBiojqL9kVKeD-gL7RecN-I3a3dE5glW-zXw/s320/Dripping+faucet.jpg" /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Yes. Well. That sounds… Good. Sweetheart. It’s your life. </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">The women in my family are a boisterous, opinionated tribe and no one is more so than my mother. We’re all fully capable of shooting first, thinking second, and apologizing – on occasion -- third. I knew she was trying hard to be respectful and careful, and not say something she’d regret. That alone told me how seriously she took this. </span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I’d opened myself up to my parents, precisely because I wanted to see what their reaction would be. And, more importantly, what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">my</i> reaction to their reaction would be. I was testing myself. If I was going to run into a cold, granite wall of resistance, I needed to know sooner rather than later. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Would they support me? </i>And, if they didn’t or couldn’t, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Could I handle it?</i></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">My mother’s response wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. But, she also hadn’t slammed the door in my face either. I’d been spared one of her many classic, flip put-downs or comebacks, the kind she’d launched in years past, often after a man had crossed the threshold and stood in her crosshairs. </span></p><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">What d' you think of him, Mom? </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><div><span style="color:#000000;"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></span></div><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">It’s your life … to ruin if you want to.</i></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"></span></em></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><em></em><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">She was my biggest fan -- and toughest critic, a master at the cavalier question or back-handed compliment. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">You’re wearing THAT to dinner?</i>) She was fiercely proud of me. She just had a funny way of showing it sometimes, as if she were fatally allergic to showing the slightest shred of sentimentality. If I called and caught her in one of her more exuberant moments, she’d greet me with one of her many, favorite terms of endearment: </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">What’s on your small mind, Peabrain?</i></span></span><br /><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><o:p><em></em></o:p></span></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 256px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 121px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347365716610350578" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qOXpwnK6HXYV62ZyspYYE0aezXVuS2mcSKCkz5lWaTUsHOdGop6qSzkbPmb29PoLtey1mCWcf2dfuaeabFI7CO_eRMw4ACtthrMRM-KMoDFaCIHTLloyiuOtWIh6FidULLXfuXX3ehA/s320/peas+in+pod.jpg" /> <p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">To know my mother is to love her – but her particular brand of love is not for the faint of heart. Which is why I needed to test the waters. If she was really against the idea: single motherhood, adoption, etc., I needed to be like a general preparing for battle, sizing up the opposition, assessing how many fronts I’d be fighting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I took her response in now and could tell she was trying but also that she was withholding. My mother can only withhold for so long. So I decided to wait, not to push. To give her the time to absorb the news. I hung up the phone and thought, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">We’re not finished. We’ve only begun. </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></i></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">The next morning, the phone rang. Early.</span><br /></span><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></o:p></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 213px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347399490555777010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10VNOmjdFsIpmKhKltjqqciBH_c1pfyitoARqEEckNvwAd5QzfJD9SjK_C7s9TGt12H9rv7uDlNH7SBGlMYV-uyYoPBjOfXzvQdn2FPNnzvSqB90Mmv1BV3MCZQCTXqBxaKAzgwnUCJQ/s320/Barely+sunrise.jpg" /><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"></i></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Hello?</i></span><br /><br /></span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Are you up? </i><o:p></o:p></span></span><br /></span><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></i></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Yeah?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></i></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">It’s Mom.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">I gathered.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">I had a thought!</i></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Okay…</i></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><em></em><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></i></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"></i></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"></i></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;color:#000000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"></i></span><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Listen. Don’t say anything. I have a question for you. Just hear me out. Will you?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Okay..</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><em>What about a sperm bank? Have you considered a sperm bank?! (</em>S</span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;">he asked the question with the kind of enthusiasm a friend might exude on discovering you’d been to their favorite restaurant: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Have you tried the chocolate cake?!)</i></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Uh…. That’s an interesting question…</i> I said, surprised, hesitating. It was, to be frank, not a proposal I’d expected from my mother. But again, this wasn’t anyone’s mother. She was different.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Did you.. would you.. consider it? </i>I could hear the eagerness in her voice. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Well… I have a friend who did it.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">You wouldn’t consider it?</i> I could swear, she was ready to bargain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Well… I guess I always figured if I carried and bore a child, the child would be a product of me and a man I knew and loved. Not some stranger. That feels weird to me. </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I didn’t mind exploring the question. Yes, I was surprised she’d raised it. But I was glad she had. Better to explore all the possibilities now and be sure, rather than look back and wonder. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The idea of going through a pregnancy and labor alone felt lonely to me. And I couldn’t imagine trying to recover from giving birth while also managing a newborn. Then too, I thought about all those girls in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><u1:place st="on"><u1:country-region st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region></span></span></span></u1:country-region></u1:place><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">, girls who needed families, love, and a home.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> </i>And me? I’d always wanted a girl. It all made sense. I also knew if I went to a sperm bank, I could just as easily end up with a boy. And while, to me, two, happy, healthy, parents was, or is, the ideal, I felt, at a minimum, if I had the choice, providing a child with a same sex role model was important. I couldn't be a dad to a boy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The more I pondered my mother’s question, the more it confirmed my thinking. She was quiet again while I explained how I felt. Finally, I realized I should explore the root of her question.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> What made you think of a sperm bank?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;">She hesitated. I heard her suck in her breath. Then she blurted it out: </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;">It’s just you have such good genes! <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I burst out laughing. Even now, as I think back on this moment, it makes me smile. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">We are, at the root of it, despite our rough edges, a loving, loyal family whose worst sin perhaps is we’re rather fond of ourselves. We have our strengths. If you go back far enough or search broadly enough, we have our share of achievements… leaders, lawyers, politicians, academics, engineers, writers, business executives, even philanthropists. But we have, in equal measure, our imperfections, physical failings, as well as some blind spots. If you study the family tree with a cold, clear eye, we have our challenges: high blood pressure, heart disease, <u1:stockticker st="on">ALS</u1:stockticker>, Aspergers, asthma, addiction, Parkinsons, divorce, diabetes, dyslexia, depression, and suicide. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">My mother has lived a charmed life and she knows it. She was, and is, deep down to her boots, a risk averse soul. In that moment, in that call, as she shared her thoughts and I processed mine, I realized she was afraid. In her gut, on this first pass, she clung to the familiar. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">There were no guarantees with adoption but I had some sense of my limits. I wasn’t planning to apply for a special needs child. My hope was to work with an agency to find a healthy child who might be a good match for me, who had the potential to thrive in my care. It was a leap of faith but I knew, I’d seen, that bearing a biological child was no less of a leap of faith. I’d run into a high school friend only two years earlier. Neither he, nor his wife, had any history of cancer in their families. Yet, his seven year old daughter battled a deadly brain tumor. </span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="color:#000000;">My mother wasn't quite there with me. But, God bless her, she wasn’t running flat out in the other direction either. And, turning back to that same family tree, we both knew adoption was happily threaded through it.</span></span><br /><br /></span><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347361860737660594" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwvxgcp9UkNADN6R4UU8b_PcfNFaYo2Lb7_GOVIyL8JxJlIYHbN5wnaKhsJf9533Hwl8tdw2imSnsoe_fG3Db9Qzf9jtzrMLcdtrvODnKB1U9OAdnUJz09Z5eSoGQa-n2a1nUB-QRhm8/s320/Family+tree+-+1.jpg" /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">I saw if I wanted to do this badly enough, if I was really ready, I’d have to step out in front, take the lead, and show her the way. I had my fears and there were many unknowns. But our call only confirmed my decision.</span> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-81329570254659430392009-06-02T10:27:00.000-07:002009-06-02T11:04:40.444-07:00Dethroned<em></em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAIVGQTU97UBfh1AdueOOTR_ASGz-fpqIfwaZnIFzEbhIUoxTj_kpyYOB87swcY3tVYLEaSxCUGsFsJHbwxE6wtAzGa7OdL05oWw5oZRAkzlZyPqSZxocJawQWfl51r-Sm09CbU6Bqpk8/s1600-h/Crown.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 205px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 202px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342789702715129698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAIVGQTU97UBfh1AdueOOTR_ASGz-fpqIfwaZnIFzEbhIUoxTj_kpyYOB87swcY3tVYLEaSxCUGsFsJHbwxE6wtAzGa7OdL05oWw5oZRAkzlZyPqSZxocJawQWfl51r-Sm09CbU6Bqpk8/s320/Crown.jpg" /></a>She's still playing basketball. Every recess. Every day. Not only that, but last week she announced she'd "bumped" Ben P. -- none other than the third grade <em>king</em> of <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/05/bump.html">Bump</a>. Yesterday, she whooped two other boys, winning two games out of three. I asked how they took it and she said the only comment one boy made was, <em>Gee... your game has really improved.</em><br /><div><div><br />I wanted to shimmy and shout, <em>You've come a long way baby!</em><br /></div><div><br />Instead, I played it cool. (It's what she wants from me these days.) I smiled. We high fived. And I left it at that.</div><div></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 144px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 50px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342784909684359874" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoKGCISEqn0azAKrmClhS6E2zPd4btk1PeJOVzsTDNQGF2aj1-xetyJqk_3affjJb7ACO9qb3lyJgNQNjL9abMR5ANhtff1eXLhyHjoDFLiIM8PZXpvbqhZwEsKlHpkpQVupyT-SN-ZKg/s320/Three+Asterisks+-+1.jpg" />I've been horribly neglectful of this blog due to end of school year pressures combined with the time involved wrapping up a certificate program I started in January. But I'm eager to return here -- hopefully next week -- to share more about our everyday lives as well as stories from the early days, how I started out, bumping along on my own humbling, up and down journey as a single adoptive parent.<br /><div><br />In the meantime, many thanks and blessings to all those loyal followers who continue to check back in to see where we are and what we are up to. I hope to see you all soon. </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-49249594504683265842009-05-18T21:52:00.000-07:002009-06-02T10:27:17.249-07:00Bump<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 228px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 216px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337416741804452978" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-K8E4Zi_U1JDbQWKesQay2Afi3_2FSa9dVr92moA7Fv3wCNa4kuntWZINGZO4wfmBnJAIleSuqva6WPe3mOSCZDnImEfiCWxCD0Vq0d5E5F5P-O9CKyADIWWBMFaBqTvPzIPQwQv0Xq0/s320/Sky+high+dreams.jpg" /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnkONsmof2qm73ewWczuo6-RgPrtJy9UVpl90l0lgoO2lD4Z6XSXZEfevOKTClsYXmiyS9tIlCVmhI0oyk4BhyvwlJMYNJ-ddkhZDNjt1X5Lw76_S4sVejLRUyYWjw3nXo11BnGPPd28/s1600-h/Sunset.jpg"></a></div><div></div><p></p>She came home last Wednesday, dumped her backpack in the hall, hugged me, and headed to the kitchen for a late afternoon snack and the day’s debriefing.<br /><br /><em>I tried out for Bump today, Mom.</em><br /><br />It’s mid-May. There are four weeks left in the school year. She’s been shooting baskets every day, every recess, alone in a corner of the playground since early last fall.<br /><br /><em>What do you mean... tried out? </em>I asked.<br /><br />At the start of the school year, she and her classmates played nothing but <em>Four-Square</em>. Then, for a change, they played <em>Nine-Square</em>. They played before school, during school (at recess,) and after school. My daughter loved it. Then, for some reason, or perhaps no reason, somewhere around mid-October, the kids all switched to a game called <em>Bump</em>. They lined up on the basketball court, and took turns shooting baskets. If you took a turn and missed, you could still use your ball to try and bump the next person’s shot away. <p></p><div></div><div>She withdrew. <em>They’re mean to each other,</em> she said. <em>The kids cheer if you get ‘bumped’ out.</em><br /><br />More and more it seemed, when I asked about her day, about what happened at recess, she chose to go it alone. She wasn’t joining in the other kids’ games, and she sat alone at lunch. This wasn’t like her. She loved to be in the thick of things, to play with the other kids.<br /><br />There was a lot going on last fall. I’d been warned third grade wasn’t always smooth sailing, that the waters could be choppy.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 211px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 228px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337589251902935394" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIq0rEhULzCssCD4ozbNFLvGgcvkoPmmWrzj-Ayw2BauvcdarkW2t21nxCWgZ1wR2NdYufceRhFzFJj7eDQKVPIZaBiK8sBubr79Ynbu3wBbjVUcOYdbJ4sPulXtnzY0FhbHaCKToxpxE/s320/Chinese+junket+-+1.jpg" /><br /><div></div><div></div><div>By mid-October, this was abundantly clear. My daughter was coming home from school, three out of five days each week, in tears. <em>What was going on?</em><br /></div><br /><div>What wasn’t going on?<br /><br />One boy in her class prodded and teased her relentlessly. Like an awkward, St. Bernard puppy, all elbows and feet, he was accustomed to rougher play, to an older brother’s jostling and teasing. He was sweet, but he was also obtuse. He couldn’t read my daughter’s upset, her non-verbal cues.<br /><br />One day in the lunchroom another girl from her class attempted a clumsy power play. She whispered to a cluster of girls, suggesting my daughter was <em>mean</em>. The good news? The girls looked at <em>Presumptive-Ring-Leader-Girl</em> as if she were crazy. The bad news? My daughter, sitting one table away, alone with her lunch, heard the exchange.<br /><br />Another girl, needy and anxious, not knowing a better way, fought for friends, position, or playground advantage using pressure, coercion, exclusion, and threats. <em>It’s not fair! </em>she would cry. <em>You’re mean! I’m telling!</em> The girl wouldn’t take no for an answer. Not knowing how to respond, not wanting to create further conflict, my daughter gave in. This only made her more of a target. She ended up odd girl out, squeezed out of play, even friendships.<br /><br />At school, she retreated to the safety of the <em>Sad Froggy Desk, </em>in tears. At home, she retreated to the couch, in tears. I sat with her, listened, asked questions. I tried humor. We brainstormed solutions and role played. Slowly she learned to distinguish between accusation and reality, between forceful threat and meaningless bluster. Between coercion and friendship.<br /><br /><em>Be yourself, </em>I said. <em>Follow the Golden Rule. Remember, what goes around, comes around. </em><br /><br />We cycled through the same conversations over and over. For weeks this consumed the bulk of our evenings.<br /><br />She had good days and bad but finally, slowly, she began to bounce back. The boy who’d been jostling and teasing stepped into her crosshairs one time too many. She looked him in the eye just as we’d practiced. She called out his name then, staring him down, said firmly and clearly, <em>I don’t like that. Please stop it.</em>” The boy froze in his tracks and nearly fell over. But the teasing and jostling stopped.<br /><br />Soon too, she was on good enough terms with Presumptive-Ring-Leader-Girl. And she stood her ground with Needy-and-Anxious. <em>I'm not mean, </em>she countered. <em>Maybe you’re the one who's mean</em>.<em> If you don’t like what we’re doing, sit some place else. </em><br /><br />The tears and upset diminished. Still, she spent much of her free time, at lunch, on the playground, alone. She sat apart and played apart. Then, this spring, <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/of-loss-and-joy-and-desiring.html">a new wave of sadness</a> on a different front: the loss of her birth mother, her country and culture. I wondered if the year was all just too much, if it was taking a toll on her self-esteem. But I knew too much outward worry would make matters worse. So I watched and I waited.<br /><br />I stopped by school one day to drop off some papers and decided to take a look for myself. I snuck a peek out at the playground. There were kids everywhere, chasing, racing, swinging, spinning, batting, kicking, climbing, yelling, shooting, shoving, and shouting. I spotted my daughter off on a corner of the black top, apart from her classmates -- an island of calm.<br /><br />She stood there, holding a basketball. </div><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 190px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 166px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337586604959311122" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zmOdm4MY_ZlO060U9JyQafvqAik4tjWq58fF8ZYKarEmSj_JwTUqQUHYM3wjB46lfB_LH950E47ux53aCxipOY57ijF0P0eQOKtrAkdM_Te-0P4jxpC4oTLMGBtul3LsCBPOL-9uQl8/s320/Basketball.jpg" />The ball looked big, almost a quarter the size of her body. Her little girl hands fanned out, clutching the great orange orb. She looked up at the tall, far away hoop, pulled the ball in close to her chest, then hurled the beast up and out, throwing the full weight of her body behind it, stumbling forward. Sometimes the beast found the basket: <em>Whoosh! </em>More often than not, it didn't. It hit the rim with a dull, resounding thud: <em>Whh-onggg!</em> The backboard shuddered and the ball ricocheted away. She scrambled to rein in the runaway and then she returned. She dribbled. Got back in position. Collected her thoughts, took aim, and hurled the beast again.<br /><br />She was neither sad nor upset. <em>Maybe this wasn’t a bad thing...</em><br /><br />A little while later when she mentioned sitting alone in the lunchroom, I asked why she chose not to sit with her friends. If there might be a reason. The answer? The fewer the distractions, the sooner she finished, the greater the chance she’d be out on the court, under a hoop, with a ball.<br /><div></div><br />A few weeks later, she asked if I could find a basketball camp for one of her summer activities.<br /><div></div><br /><em>Did an escape turn into a passion? Or was the passion a healthy escape..? </em><div></div><br /><div><em>Did it matter?</em></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 157px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 42px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337575378818189234" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8AY2RCTAuwjp5AuKYQLX3vJJQBL-n-gfRls9aV9wpqXyuttbmiNfi9ceStqEbxZZQP2r3BPkN9pXPFO-Rtn1I9Z2zROTbynk0HXTwvy8qIkAMcDSpioRB4L0CN0XdvFugKdTPeheZgq4/s320/Three+Asterisks+-+2.jpg" /> <div></div>The sun shot low beams of light through the panes of our back kitchen door. My daughter sat at the counter, licking her frozen yoghurt. Trying out at <em>Bump</em>, she explained, meant she’d stepped into line along with her classmates to take a turn at the basket.<br /><br /><em>What prompted this?</em> I asked.<br /><br />Turns out, her friends, Emmy, Sarah, and Hannah, had pleaded with her for days, urging her to join them. <em>Come on! Please! Just come! Get in line!</em> So, she stepped into line and when her turn came, she looked up at the hoop, took aim and, thrusting her arms out, propelled the ball up into the air.<br /><br /><em>And guess what, Mom?</em><br /><br /><em>What?</em><br /><br /><em>I got it in! I shot a basket!</em> She sprang out of her seat, pumped her fists high in the air, made a "V" with her fingers, and strutted about the kitchen. Kicking her knees up high, she shouted, <em>Oh yeah… oh yeah.. oh yeah… I ROCK!</em><br /><br /><em>You sure do, kiddo.</em><br /><br /><em>But you know what?</em><br /><br /><em>What?</em><br /><br /><em>I tried Bump at the beginning of the year and -- </em>she rolled her eyes -- <em>I really sucked!</em><br /><br />She cracked up.<br /><br />That evening, she shared a note she'd received from one of the girls in her class.<br /><br /><em>Dear _________,<br />You’re a great friend. You rock! Let’s have a play date.</em><br /><br /><p>I looked at my daughter and marveled at her resilience, at how far she'd come. I told her as much, and she beamed. </p><p>Thirty minutes later, washed and scrubbed, the two of us settled into my high, four poster bed. Drawing the large comforter up about our chins we sank deeper into the bed. Max burrowed in between the stretch of our bodies. Black patches of curly fur appeared between the excess folds of white cotton cover. His deep measured breathing soon filled the room.<br /><br />I opened <em>Phantom Tollbooth </em>and picked up where we'd left off. Milo, Tock, and the Humbug had leapt to Conclusions -- but now they made their way back. We lost ourselves in the rhythm of story, the puns, and word play. We peered up at each other with knowing smiles, a shared understanding. The minutes ticked by and we nestled still deeper into the bed. The comforter was so full, so thick, so high, we soon caught only glimpses of each other between the great white, billowy waves. We grew sleepy, drifting along on beautiful, calm, balmy waters. Just us three, on our great white raft.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 449px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 223px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337584085977447442" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOT2-4wg3VXLruXLuZ2RlKBe7R6EwRke-F2LTpphkMIc_X_4ZQrGjBR-4Zg8CqpiWpro9UPaZx7ZDqHpwunAYIseX0Vw7xdFD8yu1lUIBe9Nsy-8Ln3usLeDWoWmes7AT85gjqnbj0kLA/s320/Clouds.jpg" /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-13183050999371225102009-05-14T14:08:00.000-07:002009-05-14T15:06:19.768-07:00Snippets & SnatchesI’ve been so overwhelmed these past few months by the big issues, by the recent, <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html">rock-your-world kinds of moments</a>, I’ve neglected to share a few of the little everyday moments, the joyful snippets and snatches that pass in an instant, yet stay in your heart forever.<br /><br />It's been a consuming week. My computer crashed. My child crashed. The computer never rebooted. My child, warmed and wilted, slowly responded to treatment.<br /><br />She collapsed Friday evening with a temperature of 102. I called the doctor’s office and we went in first thing Saturday to check for Swine. No Swine. Thank goodness. By Saturday mid-day she was better, though still not herself. Saturday night her fever spiked to 103. Her body felt warm like a furnace. I gave her Tylenol then swabbed her down with a cool, wet washcloth. She cried. Then she slept.<br /><br />She woke early Sunday, still fighting a low-grade fever. But while I slept, she tip-toed downstairs, poured out a glass of juice, and retrieved the morning paper. At 7am, I heard my door and opened my eyes to see my 9 year old, pajama girl pad into the room, holding glass of juice and paper aloft.<br /><br /><em>Happy Mother’s Day Mom!</em><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 212px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 153px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335797569572170450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6_TQ1a5jv_AQwkPU4EtqFcaQQLsVkaSdxYNWgvszXfkNUtI4O125vtDA0QqR2_dOW_RqtMcQfsMk5YQg_zozJPTnvFG6a6JyqUuxyCz5mM8zBkIpDcCAC4N5iKRb2W3JEPRPnkQLNKXQ/s320/Two+Hearts+%26+M.jpg" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-38263409418953525482009-05-06T22:02:00.000-07:002010-07-07T08:28:15.665-07:00The Charm & Challenge of ChinaTwo and half years before I adopted my daughter, when my girl was nothing more than the germ of an idea planted, lying in wait, at the back of my mind, I decided to go to China.<br />
<br />
I figured if adoption was feasible, if motherhood was pending, I should try and sate my appetite for adventure while I had the chance. I’d always wanted to see the Great Wall and thought, if I was going to adopt from China, it made sense to visit – to see if I felt an affinity for the people and the culture.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332965885927238274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5tNpFmMjcU3GNUEfHScuqGKftgmpxhetacl0wp5E402HsLs41fi618ti04Hl0aGh_w3TxP6C0ZasAjWPM0sGyGR6IcFBgAaZfYokNKlQU8mvQorKCs04OX_rVzBFvtwgcn6oFiKWhWaQ/s320/Rice+%26+jams.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 293px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 196px;" /><a href="http://www.rei.com/adventures">REI</a> offered a bike tour through southeast China’s most picturesque country, through Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. The literature waxed poetic, painting peaceful, pastoral scenes of picturesque hamlets, villages, farms, crystal clear running rivers, and towering karst limestone mountains, scenes that inspired China’s great painters and poets. I signed on and convinced my friend Carol to join me. We embarked on rigorous training rides, imagining, anticipating the bucolic charms of China.<br />
<br />
The reality proved slightly different.<br />
<br />
By November ‘98, I found myself biking along a dirt path bisecting a long and narrow dike. It was our group’s first day out riding on open roads -- but all I could think was how relieved I was to leave the smog, the tension of the cities and towns, the odd looks from the locals, the stern lectures from our guide, and the ominously empty 7 Star Crag Park with its haunting lakes and lush gardens. To say the trip had strange, uneasy beginnings, that I had misgivings, was an understatement.<br />
<br />
Our small group of six had flown into Hong Kong, briefly explored the smog-infested city, and stayed the night. Early the next morning, we boarded a commuter ferry and rode 4 hours up the Pearl River, deeper into the smog, squinting through thick layers of gray and brown haze. Factories and cranes, -- heavy industry -- hugged the shoreline.<br />
<br />
<em>I’m in China</em>, I thought. <em>So why am I thinking …Newark, New Jersey?</em><br />
<br />
I exchanged nervous glances with Carol but said nothing. We landed in the PRC, in the town of Zhaoqing, and met our guide and driver. As we bumped and bounced along in our shock-absorbent-free tour van, our guide, Ji-wei, turned to welcome us. He had a solid muscular build, short cropped hair, a wholesome face, and a broad, handsome smile. Using close-to-impeccable English, he gave us an introduction, a lecture really, on modern China’s history.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332966788152329602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGRZpxSbko7fYhPMWGoq6a0n_CpfIVBPw7wTViCsHEAX1EgOuZaMaQ2NZHQcKW3I9PJfPNmRY9uxR_IXcpZYGyXaxz3HknBtDuG10CqFRmGiLloPbhLyET-4VInbHTxqszegpr_vOPGE/s320/Map+of+China+-+b.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 289px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 392px;" /><br />
<em>China</em>, or <em>Chinese</em>, he explained, was really Western nomenclature. For thousands of years, the people have called their country <em>Zhōngguó</em>, meaning central or middle kingdom, the world that lies between the celestial heavens and the underworld. (<em>Hint, hint, </em>he seemed to be saying, <em>the center of civilization</em>.) Mao Tse Tung the father of modern China, defeated the corrupt, debauched General Chiang Kai-Shek after a long and difficult civil war. (The notion of a Communist Revolution, again, was a western construct.) The Russians were not involved but America had meddled intrusively, backing the evil General. Mao understood and supported the people, lifting China up and out of oppressive imperial rule and medieval privilege. Deng Xiao Ping brought economic reforms and further transformed the country.<br />
<br />
Lecture complete, the group stopped for lunch at an eerily empty resort, a place bounded by karst limestone formations and filled with pools, lakes, quiet paths, pavilions, pagodas, and lush green gardens. With little explanation (and a touch of disdain?) our guide noted the man who’d designed and built the elegant 7 Star Crag Park had paid for it with his life -- in the Cultural Revolution.<br />
<br />
<em>What to say?</em> The group grew silent. <em>Had I made a mistake? What were we doing here?</em> I avoided Carol’s glances.<br />
<br />
We climbed back into the van and headed deeper into the country. The van stopped again and Carol and I, and the others, tested and fitted our bikes. We set out, peddling, climbing a path up onto the dike, looking for a touch of something less …official, less ominous, more authentic.<br />
<br />
A school girl rode her bike up beside us. She asked timidly, in broken English, if we were American. We nodded, smiled, and showed her our map. She offered to show us the way and asked if she might ride with us and practice her English. We nodded, <em>Sure</em>. We rode. We chatted. We began to relax. <br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333124753387121378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWOK375yXXx2UlZrU62zBxl7RJi7w4KsGlIO6TSmJKmLrc5wlloqGMGTt4y2NHj3XsZfys8tbu80CYYDsie3iNhZZhv343KRxVqXuqpYMYq_glbEANpiMZnEb_AS_eZao8XtVEQ7Iz4g/s320/Threshing+rice.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 202px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
Over the next 9 days, we biked 50-60 miles a day -- and encountered China, in all its rich, confusing complexity. We found a rapidly changing landscape, a country undergoing massive change, on a massive scale. We found a people, a culture, as charming as it was forbidding.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIIcfH5fGA9zwsTbCcIEZxTmtG2mJBqYpawilyjcY6tDyDHffOMcswHXAaa5hvxTj6BdRSLZy8GXx78jN8xkhNJqrOA3UXu0Z0GHrIssxsRower2Kvs6rmgfrku8b0M8hBqSCTYmYnWqg/s1600-h/Waterfishing.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332962312427588706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIIcfH5fGA9zwsTbCcIEZxTmtG2mJBqYpawilyjcY6tDyDHffOMcswHXAaa5hvxTj6BdRSLZy8GXx78jN8xkhNJqrOA3UXu0Z0GHrIssxsRower2Kvs6rmgfrku8b0M8hBqSCTYmYnWqg/s320/Waterfishing.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 273px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 193px;" /></a>We biked through the country and saw paddies, fields, and farmland that glowed green and gold in the sun, even as coal factories hovered on the horizon, belching black plumes of unscrubbed smoke. We watched fishermen setting their nets, families working their fields, threshing rice, raking grain, burning the empty stalks. Those who weren’t fishing or working the land, dug ditches, lay roads, logged forests, erected new concrete and brick structures.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332963889386818882" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0kJfvFTsp0t5Ce6bkvf4gvn-xoYvdRuRsKLfvM8P-u1f8k-tVeGtY3WYgPHF0sqeDNCq_-S5oxUybg1S0YpW2ob8tXCCxKmSXME1iOsMAepVxd2bhaGigviWVPchueUZD5wT_LJJA4E/s320/Child+with+load+-+b.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 271px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 223px;" />Everyone worked. Well, almost everyone. We passed clusters of men in small towns, lingering in pool halls, smoking, loitering in the square, leering as we passed. We noticed more often than not, that women and children worked in the fields. They carried astonishing loads, on heads, shoulders, bikes, and backs, lugging firewood, brush, persimmons, potatoes, hay, and big buckets of water. They smiled as we passed even when their bodies bowed under the loads they bore.<br />
<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332959185557480578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTb20AOVZPRSpGopIiqA9NfEjxztLjMZHjuT6DBjow86713NQseMzIxzVrXYv9mvHQRugTUZxE_lgD_J8bAbai6bSeFYanDEuSCpS95NNuO0tv_62UgmZS2W9G-zcpagY833Ue62szenU/s320/Loads+of+hay.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 268px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 408px;" /></div><div>Some of the people were poor. Dirt poor. We passed a few places where hygiene seemed non-existent. The bathrooms were the worst I’d ever seen, putrid, open air fly-fests.<br />
<br />
Ji-wei reminded us of China’s difficult history, of floods, famine, and quakes, of the terrible loss of life. The forces of nature prevailed. In the end, human life was fragile -- and cheap. It’s why, he explained, nature looms large in classical Chinese painting. Humans are small, insignificant figures against a larger landscape. </div><div><br />
</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332964318910015154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzvKJPJgmA9aM5TrryalzpbW8zIHN75zWGec8pSnmIB-QG2vGQy3xv6-04ii-WIVr9mRtKYHKzhazW4d-F9Ok6sNVar3WxM6KMaaTCkVtM0KvLZ1A9oRvcghBM06t5nEhBwxBbN8RjKYg/s320/Kids+in+cart.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 362px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 229px;" /><br />
I looked for ways to encourage our typically tight lipped guide to share more of his life and culture. When I learned he had an 8 year old daughter, I asked for the stories he told her. He shared two examples:<br />
<br />
The first was the story of a boy who rescued a sick, injured wolf he saw scrambling to escape a horde of hungry villagers. The boy took the wolf home and nursed him back to health. Later, when suspicious villagers confronted the boy, he hid the wolf in the folds of his coat. But the wolf chewed through the boy’s stomach -- and the boy dropped to his death.</div><br />
<div>Ji-wei stopped.<br />
<br />
<em>That’s it? </em>I asked, somewhat shocked. (<em>Where was the happy ending?</em> )<br />
<br />
<div><em>Uh huh, </em>Ji-wei nodded. </div><br />
<div><em>And.. the moral of the story is..?</em><br />
<br />
<em>If you show your enemy weakness, </em>Ji-wei replied, <em>he will destroy you.</em> </div><div><br />
<em>Oh...!</em><br />
<br />
Ji-wei launched right into his second example, a tale of a famous general. His troops had fought a long, hard campaign but ended up outnumbered, cornered with their backs to the sea. Several ships lay at anchor nearby but, as the enemy approached, the general burned every last ship, the men’s sole means of escape. The soldiers were forced to stand and fight.</div><br />
<div><em>So... they beat the odds and won? </em>I asked hopefully.<br />
<br />
<em>No.</em> Ji-wei replied. <em>They were slaughtered.</em><br />
<br />
I paused, eyebrows elevated. <em>And, the lesson is…?</em><br />
<em>True patriotism is when you stand and fight to the finish -- even in the face of terrible odds.</em><br />
<br />
It was the last story I asked for.<br />
<br />
We continued along open roads, biking from town to town. We passed men peddling to market on rattling, rusted bikes that creaked and groaned with the weight of 200 pound pigs, or huge 100 pound sacks of grain slung over the back of the bike. We passed women hacking raw boulders out of the hillside. They wore straw hats, thin blouses, cotton trousers, and flip flops and worked with young children seated beside them.<br />
<br />
It dawned on us what a sight we were -- in our space-age helmets, special shoes, spandex shorts, and padded seat pants. We rode brightly colored bikes with aluminum frames and fat tires, using fancy sprockets and shifters. We carried maps and a camera. </div><div><br />
</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332964806734228562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHGAD3FdypGS8IMRqXPV2G8iE6KTYG3x6kpiqNRbkSj3yUijJe8sjLQpVSiGLaCjjkCLLkx_tNAtlDE62YMWdLTphV7yuJ1E_1-HVkjIny3mQIk3Uxu5ZtcX5UpHMUjfoFN7Z7Vdx3FS4/s320/My+bike.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 258px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
And yet, while a few people hid, or averted their gaze, others stopped and stared at us openly. More more often than not, the stares turned to grins, then smiles. They welcomed us with great curiosity and warmth. Mothers held up their children and waved. School boys rushed to greet us while the girls, more bashful, held back, wide-eyed, soaking in the sight of us.<br />
<br />
<div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332991149134781890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkl_6TkGtraj8hD1q0LeIV47DEd5yT5AO3K3L6vrjNnfboLvBIl_t6UXaQXszal-TMz6IKXf_b3tMYlMI7i1xQKfu6TNgkwyNK_mDYP_4m9qKgepOf4BILaZwZNANEYDJ940i-IQnMv8/s320/Three+Schoolboys.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 203px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></div><br />
<div>One small girl with dirty hands, dirty face, dirty clothes, ran to bring me a present: a single, soot-covered taro. I was loathe to take it (<em>was it dinner?</em>) but I couldn’t refuse her.<br />
<br />
We passed through local “hamlets” -- towns of 200,000, small cities of 500,000, and mid-sized cities of millions. We dodged pedestrians, pushcarts, pedal carts, pigs, bicyclists, buffalo, cars, cats, trucks, ruts, boulders, ditches, and dogs. The sheer number of people was staggering.<br />
<br />
At the end of the trip, I traveled north to see Xian and Beijing. Streets and shops with neon signs promoted modern life’s amenities, from designer clothes to electronic gadgets. Young women wore make-up and tight trendy clothing. Men sported suits and cell phones. Still, signs of poverty and ill-health remained. I don’t recall seeing anyone with a weight problem and the smiles of many, especially the elderly, revealed crowded teeth, crooked teeth, missing teeth, even blackened yellow teeth. Beggars, some deranged, some deformed, wandered at will.<br />
<br />
I saw the Terra Cotta warriors, the Great Wall, the Imperial and Summer Palaces and marveled. But I cringed at the sound of long throaty wind-ups, at men flinging their phlegm. I watched in amazement as parents held out their babies to pee through split pants at the edge of a public sidewalk. And I winced at the treatment of rabbits, chicks, cats, and dogs in various public markets.<br />
<br />
We arrived back in the States and it felt good to be home. I looked through my pictures and saw China had so many different textures, so many different faces: people like Ji-wei, the official face of China. But also everyday people, the men, women and children we passed in farms, on fields, by the rivers and roads -- the unofficial China, the people trying to eek out a life, all the while smiling and welcoming us with a warmth that was hard to forget.</div><div><br />
</div><div></div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332991984113817106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDVlB8MdWI5np5ErRX-GSFVZdg3Urtk1OOvV0JuARuNuoF6j_OpwqsyX-iirZARBhSqSj0b_DWU3f6ddDCqW7fyqy27a2PZv0bv27X8L1lpOxI3p-JBuUlpuLXqSxxa0azJaY-jcXfNdo/s320/Peeling+potatoes.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 217px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></div><div>My favorite photo remains the one I took of the school girl we met that first day on the dike. She looks back over her shoulder and holds up her finger, as if she is pointing the way, beckoning me on toward my future.<br />
<br />
Now my daughter and I join other FCC families. We celebrate Chinese New Year, Egg hunts, Moon festivals, and Heritage Camps. My daughter loves learning the language. She loves the martial arts, the dances, the costumes, the chance to perform. I watch her partake with pride. But part of me wonders if she’s learning Chinese culture or, if really she’s learning what is, for the most part, white, adoptive America’s take on Chinese culture. And I wonder someday if, when she travels to China, she will discover a deep rooted connection but also, a dissonance -- confronting that part of herself that is, like her mother, deeply American.<br />
<br />
<div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332958815251347330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1a8tRrzZhzxEHIMNTKgdIWkgC455ZzUwzttkHfMyFqL6wZGG9hg5L5BqsHgMG-oe9myh-_mp3IuVxpW8SI7Af5_-F6IIYFkR3Cit3fi0jYAXuahZdtW1zEe2FPU2seRI6QCwkKJwOHE/s320/Young+girl+on+dike.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 222px;" /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-41291616389302713452009-05-04T14:09:00.000-07:002009-05-04T15:10:58.458-07:00A Note For First Time Visitors<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332088923631500962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 229px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh453V8kmzrtHp0T_Ha4W-EcamLv8Sju_EBrnmCK1h7KCAUeUooRxmzQ4pDd7pbK1MZGQLVaQR7vvvXPjN-kYYo_dhFaEqbfNHTnG7bCmrHYJHGB0Cx4khQjo3Fdl9BZHyg_zpZ6QNuoC0/s320/Pack+of+Three.jpg" border="0" /><br />Welcome. Thanks for stopping by. My name is Lisa. I’m a single mom with a 12 year old Portuguese Water Dog and a 9 year old daughter I adopted from China. I started this blog this past March -- and had no idea the places it would take me, or the response it would elicit. For me it’s a chance to share everyday stories. I write about parenting, adoption, life, love, and loss. I write about the big moments, the ones that touched me or shifted my world. I write about the little moments, the ones that caught my breath or gave me pause.<br /><br />The more I write, the more some of my favorite (or hardest won) posts get buried. To give you a sense of us and our journey, here are a few highlights and pointers:<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-pack.html"><em>Why a "Pack?"</em></a><br />A brief introduction to who we are as a family and how I came up with the name, <em>Pack of Three</em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/shifting-gears-how-i-got-from-there-to.html"><em>Shifting Gears</em></a><br />How I left behind life as a professionally manic work-a-holic, and started the pack, beginning with an 8 week old Portuguese Water dog.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/puppy-tales.html"><em>Puppy Tales</em></a><br />A funny, zany look back on my trial run as a new “mom,” trying to rein in an 8 week old Portuguese Water Dog pup. (If the Obamas had only known!)<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/adoption-paradox.html"><em>An Adoption Paradox</em></a><br />As my 9 year old daughter struggles with her losses, I realize, to strengthen our bond, I must loosen my grip and make room for the mother and life she misses.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/day-in-life-of-single-mom.html"><em>A Day in the Life of a Single Mom</em></a><br />Every mom has those days where, the harder you try to pull it together, the more things come undone – sometimes in the most relentlessly humbling, hilarious way.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-i-came-to-my-decision.html"><em>How I Came to My Decision</em></a><br />After I did the research and mulled the idea over (and over,) how I finally came to my decision to adopt my daughter from China.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html"><em>Warriors </em></a><br />The heartstopping moment my beautiful, angst ridden daughter confesses a deep-seated fear: did I steal her from China?<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/of-loss-and-joy-and-desiring.html"><em>Of Loss and Joy and Desiring</em> </a><br />To show my daughter I've nothing to hide, we sit down and review her adoption papers – and confront the hardest truth of all.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/two-mothers.html"><em>Two Mothers</em></a><br />My daughter regains some of her old bounce. Life returns to normal but then, she shares a strange dream.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/car-pool.html"><em>Car Pool</em></a><br />Carpool comments that have taken me by surprise: a few favorites.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/half-world-away.html"><em>Half a World Away</em></a><br />How girls, sadly, came to be available for adoption from China, in such numbers, and how that dynamic today has changed.<br /><br /><a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-small-step-after-another.html"><em>One Small Step After Another</em> </a><br />Having just processed the hardest parts of her story, my daughter is asked to write an essay for school. The third grade has just studied tales of the Oregon Trail and the teacher suggests an essay: <em>How My Family Came West</em>. My daughter writes, <em>How I Came East</em>.<br /><br />Thanks again for stopping by <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/"><em>Pack of Three</em></a>. I welcome email and comments.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-19360298548626632842009-04-30T09:27:00.000-07:002009-05-21T22:40:36.553-07:00On Fairies, Feathers, and MagicMy daughter had stepped away with the nurse. The dentist sat on her cushioned, steel, roll-about stool, pointed to the X-ray and took me on a tour of my daughter’s mouth.<br /><br />Her lower jaw was crowded, her teeth so tightly packed, nothing could move. She’d just turned nine but only her two, top teeth had come out willingly, of their own accord. Her four middle, bottom, baby teeth had been pulled last summer to ease the crowding. Two adult teeth had come in, taking the place of the four. A third squeezed in sideways. The fourth, with no place to go, grew in behind the other three, creating a second row. My daughter’s reaction?<br /><br /><em>Look mom! Shark teeth!<br /><br />Yeah… I mumbled. Great...</em><br /><br />Six months after the first set were pulled, we were back to see the dentist. My daughter and I were both wary. The dentist had used a local anesthetic last summer. But the roots proved so long, so deep, the anesthetic so… <em>local</em>, my daughter had felt a great deal more than she should have. It shook me, my daughter, and even the dentist. Since then, no other baby teeth had loosened or budged. We were guessing – dreading – the news.<br /><br />Looking at the X-rays, the dentist confirmed it. More teeth would have to be pulled.<br /><br /><em>Four?</em> I guessed, wincing.<br /><br /><em>Uhh… no</em>, she replied. <em>Six.</em> She looked pained.<br /><br /><em>Six?</em> I repeated, incredulous.<br /><br />She was as concerned as I. She looked back at the X-ray again, then leaned in close.<br /><br /><em>Oh… look here!</em> The dentist exclaimed. <em>She has a little extra tooth.. right up here.. in the gum… behind her two front teeth. See?<br /></em><br /><em>Huh?</em> I leaned in to look and thought, <em>Oh my God… what’s that? A fang?</em><br /><br />My daughter walked up and the dentist turned to show her. <em>Look! So sweet! </em>The woman was practically cooing. <em>It’s the cutest thing. You’ve got a little fairy tooth! </em><em><br /><br /></em><em></em><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 229px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330610501031734434" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhYBmfHyPmR9X9ba3qqN78wHhAUhUvtHZEhHABAChLK7LNvRsF3-5Fwp-TDmDp6-pBcNwDXyBnWmzy4nMGCA2xjOF2EO3Z6ZskXsTi7Y0PQV-YfDUw6NbucjgeM1J4PuVWTpORIn_Z70/s320/Windblown+window+-+3.jpg" /><br />My daughter looked unsure, but took her cue from the dentist. <em>Whoa… cool…</em><br /><br />I said nothing but thought, <em>A what? A FAIRY tooth? This woman is a genius. A pure genius.</em><br /><br />After consultations with the orthodontist and oral surgeon, I was thanking the gods for that magical, little fairy tooth. Removing it required general anesthesia. The surgeon could extract the fairy tooth along with six other baby teeth -- all while my daughter slept.<br /><br />This past Monday was D-Day. Surgery day.<br /><br />My friend Cathy arrived early in the morning to help. The instructions in the pre-op pamphlet suggested two adults, one to drive, one to hold the patient.<br /><br />My daughter was calm, even cheerful. Except for the occasional protest: <em>I’m hungry! </em>And: <em>Seven teeth. Can you believe it, Cathy? Seven! Sheesh!</em> -- slapping her forehead for added effect. She was a little nervous, but she also knew she’d be asleep, she wouldn’t feel or remember a thing, and there was ice cream -- lots of it -- in her future.<br /><br />On the drive over, Cathy, focusing on the positive, suggested brightly: <em>You’ll probably get a great, big bonus from the tooth fairy.<br /></em><br />I froze. <em>Gack! </em>I had ice cream, jello, pudding, yoghurt, blankets, pillows, and meds at the ready. <em>Crap! I’d forgotten about the tooth fairy.<br /></em><br />My daughter came to the rescue. <em>Oh, Cathy,</em> she said almost disdainfully. <em>There’s no tooth fairy. It’s my mom. I know that. There’s no Santa either. It’s all my mom.</em><br /><br />I felt a touch of relief. But, she sounded so jaded, it took me aback. I grew nostalgic. <em>Oh honey... Do you remember the feather fairy?<br /></em><br /><em>Oh yeah! That was so great. But -- that was you too Mom.<br /></em><br /><em>Yeah… I know…</em><br /><br /><em>The feather fairy?</em> Cathy asked.<br /><br />I relayed the story…<br /><br />My daughter was four when she and her best buddy Ben were playing at his house in the yard and they found two bird feathers. When I came to pick up my daughter, she greeted me, jumping up and down, waving her feather.<br /><br /><em>Mommy! Look! I found a bird feather. It’s so pretty. Look! </em><br /><br /><em>It’s lovely honey.<br /></em><br /><em>Ben says if you stick it under your pillow, the feather fairy will come. And bring you a present! I’m going to stick it under my pillow. Do you think the feather fairy will really come?<br /></em><br /><em>Oh… I don’t know about that honey…<br /></em><br />I was swearing under my breath: <em>Damn! </em>I loved Ben’s mom but she was a cross between June Cleaver and Martha Stewart. She always had some craft project, a creative gift, or toy for the kids. I really didn’t want to get sucked in this time.<br /><br /><em>Oh I hope the feather fairy comes, Mom! I really hope she comes.</em><br /><br />My daughter talked of nothing else the rest of the evening and I realized this was one of those times I had to deliver. So I tucked her in bed after she oh-so-carefully laid her little brown, frayed feather flat under her pillow. I kissed her goodnight, pulled the door closed, and raced downstairs. Rummaging and digging about the storage closet, I found a small, chocolate brown dog with a red, plaid ribbon. I’d bought it and buried it for a special occasion. <em>Score!</em> But… how to make clear this was a special, one-time treat? I didn’t want my child collecting these filthy things, de-nuding every dead bird in our neighborhood.<br /><br />I pulled out a blank piece of paper and picked up a fuschia colored marker. I drew swirly shapes and dotted the page with pink fairy dust. In big looping, curlicue script, I wrote:<br /><br /><em>Dear _______,<br /><br />Congratulations on finding your very first feather! You are a clever girl. Your first feather is magical and special. Always remember it. And, the next time you find a feather, make a wish, think of the feather fairy -- and release it to the wind.<br /><br />With love,<br />The Feather Fairy</em><br /><br />The next morning my daughter burst into my room. She showed me the note and the little brown dog, hugging him tight. <em>Mom! The feather fairy came! She came!</em><br /><br />We read the note together.<br /><br /><em>She knows my name! How did she know my name?! And she signed it “with love!”</em> She paused, filled with wonder. <em>Mom! The feather fairy <span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><strong>loves</strong></span> me.</em><br /><br /><em>Yes, she does honey. She sure does.</em><br /><div><div><div><br />Turned out, the feather fairy was all Ben’s idea. Ben’s mother asked me, <em>How could you?</em> So the joke was on me. But, seeing my daughter’s joy made it all worth it. </div><br /><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 122px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 14px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330531226852051026" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxrGKYxyXKVizifzfl9rVdgk34Ae3DETneGol69fP9B9tP0ZvOuxSDZVM37bpmF4qC_ArpfCDOtsAIkBQKMPp1-Gz8m0Noroh80eZrvd5Ltl-NICncC6dPVuDqEu8vKBiqiVBT3GjKtg/s320/Three+Asterisks+-+3.jpg" /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>The anesthesiologist came out to the waiting area to greet us and my daughter rose from her chair to take the doctor’s hand. She smiled, gave a wave, and followed the woman into the back. Cathy and I sat and chatted.<br /><br />When the nurse came to take me back to the recovery area, I saw my daughter lying on her side on a soft vinyl mat and pillow. Her legs stretched out beyond the flannel baby blue blanket I’d brought. Her head was cocked strangely back while her mouth was stuffed with bloodied rolls of gauze. She looked so big and yet -- she reminded me of a baby bird, the kind you find on the ground that’s fallen too soon from the nest.<br /><br /><div><em>She was so grown-up</em>, the nurse offered.<br /></div><div><em>Thanks, </em>I said. <em>Why is her head cocked so far back?</em><br /><br /><em>It’s to keep her airways open,</em> the nurse replied.<br /><br />I sat down beside my daughter and touched her arm lightly. She woke slowly, limp, confused, completely disoriented. Cathy and the nurse helped me wheel her out to the car. She lay in my arms in a stupor while Cathy drove us home. I struggled to lift my daughter up and out of the car and realized I was nearing my limit. She’s 64 pounds now, and three quarters my height. But I managed to carry her into the house and lay her down in bed.<br /><br />The rest of the day was calm and peaceful. She slept off the drugs, watched movies, ate bowl after bowl of ice cream, and checked out her new jack-o-lantern grin. Her two front teeth seemed to float out alone in the empty space of her mouth. </div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 238px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 226px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330530665541543074" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijRCSThcCrDchyphenhyphennjyv1iJlGrIJP7ymV02PBkIaauavd5C34nxvjameQbpo7Wc50P8m2zIOLDCzV_X1BoBOaHrLx2upc5YMDzmnlmi9zeHSMzxG5U7qE_CYDsPqcyxq7iVOB2sNw6LwKKg/s320/Jackolantern.jpg" /></div><br /><div><br /><em>Look mom! </em>she smiled. <em>I’m a bucky-toothed beaver! </em>We laughed.<br /><br />After dinner, she went upstairs to get ready for bed. As I cleaned up the last of the dishes and wiped down the counters, I spotted the little white plastic case I’d thrown on the sill that morning. I peeked inside.<br /><br />Her teeth lay like fallen soldiers. The surgeon had washed and saved all seven and I noticed the roots: long and intact. I found the little fairy tooth. It was clean, round, and pearly, almost pretty.<br /><br />I closed up the case and went to join my daughter. Bathed, scrubbed, and brushed, she was reading quietly in bed. I flopped down on my belly to join her.<br /><br /><em>How’re the gums?</em><br /><br /><em>They’re okay. I’m okay.<br /></em><br /><em>Good.</em> Pause. <em>Hey… did it bother you I told Cathy about the feather fairy?<br /></em><br /><em>Oh no, Mom. It’s fine.</em><br /><br /><em>Okay. But… do me a favor?<br /></em><br /><em>What’s that Mom?<br /></em><br /><em>Well, I know you don’t believe in fairies, or Santa, any more. But …promise me something.<br /></em><br /><em>What, Mom?<br /></em><br /><em>Don’t give up on the magic. Not just yet. There’s still lots of magic to come.</em><br /><br /><em>Okay, Mom.</em> Pause. <em>Is that it?<br /></em><br /><em>Yeah…<br /></em><br />She turned and went back to her book.</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-30276269061921058552009-04-24T23:41:00.000-07:002009-04-27T22:41:53.541-07:00One Small Step After AnotherShe brought home an assignment from school and it read: <em>My Family’s Journey West.</em><br /><br />My daughter’s social studies teacher had been teaching the class about the hardships families endured on the Oregon trail: about rutted roads and rusty wagons, about couger, coyote, snake, bear, wolves, withering desert, disease, frigid mountains, frostbite, and of course hostile natives.<br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328524552200352530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 189px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigCCs1Bl0o7nKCGPW4sRbHwNQolu8pADiecwly15fZdIV1BMA6_m566nPYTyaOHR0nrnNEiSdHkKgF73SGrZAclPMUPlC8kl8_WEGKNSaU_5dtfrAUJH8nDac8epPx5fmf1yDPGXJdwEQ/s320/Oregon+Trail.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>It's now your turn, </em>the teacher wrote. She wanted to know how each of their families came to live in the West. It was time, <em>to tell your family story … and to share a family heirloom or treasure… Bring in your essay and heirloom to share with the class. It will be fun. </em><br /><br /><em>Fun?</em> I thought. <em>Fun?! Was the Oregon trail .. fun? Is root canal .. fun?</em><br /><br />Okay, so perhaps I was feeling just a wee-bit cranky. And a tad worn out. Worn out from <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html">the upset and worry of the past few weeks</a>. Worn out from <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/two-mothers.html">fighting a phantom birth mother</a>. Worn out from fighting a horrible cold or flu I was still trying to shake.<br /><br />I adore history. But now I see I love history, in part, because I didn’t have to live through it.<br /><br />Of course, the teacher couldn’t have known what had been happening at home these past few weeks. So I told my daughter she had lots of choices. She could draw from any number of family stories. But she was decided. She wanted to share her story. She liked the idea of flipping the assignment on its head. She crossed out the words <em>Family’s</em> and <em>West </em>and wrote <em>East</em> so it read: <em>My Journey East.</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328524899855814706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 257px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvtGrJTOqMgTOx4ywC11HUnemoA9oy0f8tEjDCvm4NDAoydwgsKLsfMXmcTZn7SdhEEsyW7Cif1bvHyy3R_93Z9IgXkcRGfllj6nGv9akwgYmo4ExX3PbYxkkCQyvy0c9Ovk_oGr3wWK0/s320/Chinese+junket+-+1.jpg" border="0" /><br />But that’s as far as she got. The notepad lay on the dining room table with its glorious title and empty page, waiting. Days passed. The weekend came and I asked her to take some time and focus. I suggested again she could write about something else, but she remained firm. I suggested she use her homecoming book (i.e. her life book) as a guide. She liked this idea and asked to sit and review it together. We sat on the couch and revisited each page, each photo, and reveled in happy moments. But when it came time to write, she fell apart and the question poured forth once more: <em>Why did they leave me?</em><br /><br />We set the notepad aside. I thought maybe more context would help. I tried to explain that people in China aren’t free in the way we are here. We talked about what freedom meant. We talked about the terrible penalties imposed on those exceeding the one-child quota. I told her a little of the Cultural Revolution. Of Tiananman Square. Of how dangerous it was and is to speak out against the government. We talked. We cuddled. The notepad page remained blank but I let the essay go.<br /><br />The next morning, the pad sat there waiting for her on the dining room table right where she’d left it. I asked yet again if she wanted to write about something else. No, she wanted to tell her story. So I suggested she write a short, single sentence about how she came to the orphanage and leave it at that. She could focus on the journey, our becoming a family and finally -- the essay unfolded. She wrote a page and a half. All that was left was the heirloom. But she looked tired and I suggested she finish later that day.<br /><br />She played long, hard, and happily with a buddy. It was good to hear laughter.<br /><br />That night, as I started on dinner, she sat down again with the essay. Of all the mementoes I’d saved from our trip, she liked best the little yellow cloth sandals she’d worn the day I met her. She studied them now. They were frayed and soiled with delicate yellow leaves on the instep and tiny doll faces smiling sweetly. A pale pink rosebud clung tenaciously by a thread to the left shoe while its mate had long since vanished. The sandals had squeakers embedded in their soles to encourage one small step after another.<br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328522106268526194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoGdrVjzzhoDwjUO5OBTo2q2NXw-nyFMh0xLC-NvtviXcvNutVXVVHSprK38rBpBT3Xf3WUWN-H7kLehOYRBlMbnf60L3mkx2AHzNk9OZLlf4Kp_ae9z2vr0XlUgEmZ2oqtN-d0ilQ_so/s320/Baby+shoes+-+4.jpg" border="0" /><br /><em>I don’t know what to write Mom.<br /></em><br />She says this a lot with her homework. Mostly it means: <em>I’m not in the mood to deal with this, Mom. Can’t you tell me what to write?</em> We’ve joked about this. She is highly capable. (<em>This is your homework, honey. You’re supposed to take it home, sit with it, and give it some thought. Your teacher didn’t say -- Here, take this home! Give it to your mom!</em>)<br /><br />This was no time to joke.<br /><br /><em>Think about what the shoes mean to you, honey. What do they make you think about?</em><br /><br /><em>Nothing. I don’t know. </em>She was tired, resistant.<br /><br />I searched for ideas and thought, <em>Maybe its time to emphasize the happy part of her story -- as Jonna suggested. </em><br /><br /><em>Well… maybe you could think of the shoes as a memento of the day you started a whole new chapter of your life… with me.</em><br /><br />She dissolved. <em>Why did you have to say that...?</em><br /><br />We were back again in the primordial swamp of her grief.<br /><br /><em>That’s not happy..? </em><br /><br /><em>No!</em> The tears poured out. <em>I wish you’d left me there Mom. I wish you’d never taken me from China. I wish I was back there now. </em><br /><br /><em>Back in the orphanage? Really..?</em><br /><br /><em>Yes!</em><br /><br />I wanted to argue with her, to remind her how lovely our life is, how much we have, how much I love her, how there was no future for her in the orphanage. That she couldn’t have stayed with her foster mom. But I saw she was genuinely distraught and realized I was wrestling with a demon thing, raw inconsolable pain. It defied expectations or any known form of logic. I rubbed her back, squeezed her arm weakly, and told her I was sorry. And suddenly, I was too wounded, too tired, to argue. I removed myself to the bathroom.<br /><br />I was talked out. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe there’s a point where talking is no longer helpful.<br /><br />We got through dinner -- I don't know how -- and spent a quiet evening. I read. She bathed. I tucked her in bed, kissed her good night, and told her I loved her.<br /><br />She left for school the next morning. Alone at last, I lost it. But then, I wiped my tears, and sat down at my desk to work. I had the whole day before me. Quiet. Peaceful. Healing. I went for a long walk. Soaked in the warmth of the sun.<br /><br />My brother called and offered to pick her up from after-school sewing. They’d been planning this special night for a while. Wednesday was my birthday and my daughter was dying to surprise me, to bake me a cake. Did I care about the cake? Did I need a cake? No, not really. Did I love the thought? Absolutely. And, a free day that stretched into the evening? It was rare, very rare. It hit me I needed to take more breaks. I decided, if friends asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I’d come clean: <em>Take my child for an afternoon. Or an evening. </em>I needed a little more breathing room. We both needed it. It was healthy.<br /><br />Her uncle picked her up. They went and bought ingredients. Then he watched while she baked the cake on her own. Me? I took myself out for a simple, blissfully quiet dinner. By the time I arrived home, the two were sitting on the living room couch, waiting. My daughter was smiling broadly, bursting with excitement, with joy.<br /><br /><em>Happy Birthday Mom!</em><br /><br />The cake was gorgeous and we served up three huge portions.<br /><br />Two days later, again with the aid of her uncle, my daughter surprised me with breakfast in bed, a bagel, coffee, and fresh squeezed juice.<br /><br /><em>Happy Birthday Mom!</em><br /><br />So now, it’s official. I’ve left an entire decade behind and started in on a new one. I turned 50 this week. Good friends with kind hearts (and poor vision?) say, <em>No! Can’t be possible? You can’t be 50. No Way!</em><br /><br />In my head, I think: <em>Way. Oh, way, way, way, way, way, way….</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-5660983025592430392009-04-20T16:37:00.000-07:002009-04-21T03:57:08.981-07:00Half a World Away<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluDOCUTtVqjgt54l6S0x28P3Ep7UXXbBOsh9dqE3Fv9pfUw_U6wJDINmH8j0Uh57T1LRverFUHusCQkcretkKITPdITVF_3X9tZt8GnBX9vP3Fal87mWhBfQgEMsP2ffPVvgC4v9Q6rs/s1600-h/Chinese+junket+-+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326933491946561714" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 310px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluDOCUTtVqjgt54l6S0x28P3Ep7UXXbBOsh9dqE3Fv9pfUw_U6wJDINmH8j0Uh57T1LRverFUHusCQkcretkKITPdITVF_3X9tZt8GnBX9vP3Fal87mWhBfQgEMsP2ffPVvgC4v9Q6rs/s320/Chinese+junket+-+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I was thinking we were through the worst of it. Silly.<br /><br />Less than a week after my daughter admitted her <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html">fears I stole her from China</a>, a story from the <em>New York Times</em> online edition appeared April 5th on the first page of the site, above the fold, announcing itself with a heavy black headline: <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/world/asia/05kidnap.html?scp=1&sq=Chinese%20Hunger%20Abductions&st=cse">Chinese Hunger for Sons Fuels Boys' Abductions</a></em>, by Andrew Jacobs.<br /><br />I wait till late at night, when I hear long, deep in and exhalations emanating from my daughter’s room, when she’s deep asleep, when it’s safe to click on a story without fearing two small eyes peering over my shoulder. Idle worry? Not when your daughter’s in third grade. Not when she was reading at a 6th grade level in the fall of 1st grade. She misses nothing.<br /><br />The bulk of the story revolves around China’s demand for sons. Lacking any form of social security, Chinese families, especially poorer, rural families, yearn for a son, for someone who won’t marry and leave, for someone who will care for them in old age, for someone to continue the family bloodline. But the one-child-one family policy has frustrated this yearning. So now, more than ever, boys are in demand, in danger of abduction. Heartrending stuff in its own right. But then, a quote stops me cold:<br /><br />A grieving father of a four year old boy, Peng Gaofeng, started an ad hoc group for parents of stolen children. His claim? Girls are abducted as well -- and some of these girls are sold to orphanages. <em>They are the lucky ones</em> Peng says. These girls <em>often end up in the United States or Europe after adoptive parents pay fees to orphanages that average $5,000.</em><br /><br />It feels like a punch to the gut.<br /><br />The claim makes no sense. To even entertain the possibility, that I could have been an unwitting accomplice, that I could have taken a child from her family, sickens me.<br /><br />I finish the article but there is no further mention, evidence, or explanation regarding these supposedly abducted girls. The focus returns to the issue of boys and China’s desire for sons.<br /><br />I write Jacobs to ask (politely) what this claim is founded on. If it makes any sense for China’s orphanages to pay for girls when the orphanages are flooded with more girls than they can handle. Does he have any idea how this claim might hit adoptive families in this country? Can he substantiate the claim with hard data? Answers would be helpful.<br /><br />I have yet to hear from Jacobs.<br /><br />Adopting a child from this country, as a single parent, was never an option for me. I’d never thought about adopting, much less looked to China, till a friend graciously served up the idea. I’m not one to move into big decisions lightly (<em>an understatement... I can hear friends chortling.</em>) I weighed my decision carefully, asked the hard questions, gathered the data over months, in truth, years.<br /><br /><em>Was it right to pull a child from her country, her culture?</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326929797882114274" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 217px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrC3TK8JozWTiSCM_4t2UgXuu5dZFWQkd2FGdFRhvnQAttWJRZkSMKuMI9GeuCzT4ldmffDO0dTBL4I7RaeLRHETBzD4UtaWB3KNg6f0N8NRdle_PeJ56YIOtB4x8B1Y3m6nJZOPtWot8/s320/View+from+Moon+Hill.jpg" border="0" /><br />My understanding was that there were hundreds of thousands of girls in China, that domestic adoption was uncommon in a country where families held an overwhelming bias and preference for blood ties. Hundreds of girls needed families, loving care. Orphanages were underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed.<br /><br />It all made so much sense: me, wanting to love and raise a daughter. All those girls in China needing a home.<br /><br />I adopted my daughter in 2001 and these larger existential, philosophical, moral questions were instantly relegated to the furthest recesses of my mind as everyday demands overwhelmed me: bottles, diapers, Desitan, formula, feeding schedules, nap schedules, bath routines, bedtime routines, books, teddy bears, dolls, nursery rhymes, nonsensical rhymes, hand games, finger games, food games, numbers, colors, letters. Such joyful days. An innocent interlude.<br /><br />Eight years later we’ve come full circle. But now it’s my daughter asking these questions.<br /><br /><em>How could I have been born to one family, … and ended up with another, half a world away? How could my parents have given me up? </em><br /><br />Knowing her as I do, loving her as I do, I hear these questions in a new light. They have new meaning, new urgency. Worse, a harder question confronts me:<br /><br /><em>Could I somehow be …culpable?</em><br /><br />Its insane to consider. But I don’t like avoiding hard questions. In the face of bad news, I <em>want</em> to know the worst, confront the truths, then deal with them.<br /><br />I dig out Kay Ann Johnson’s book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wanting-Daughter-Needing-Son-Abandonment/dp/0963847279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240271097&sr=1-1">Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son</a></em>. Johnson, a professor of Hampshire College with her own daughter from China, spent ten years researching the elusive story of abandonment, adoption, and orphanage care in China. She published her book in 2004. A friend recommended it. I’d promptly bought it – and shelved it.<br /><br />Johnson’s book is full of hard data. I’m a former MBA. Hard data is my friend.<br /><br />China’s one-child policy was initiated under Deng Xiaoping in 1979 in an effort to control China’s population. Resistance to the one-child policy was most widespread in the countryside – where 75-80% of the population then resided, scraping a difficult existence off of the land.<br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326929426993877282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 363px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC-xwAUB8xg5LSfCW8lldsQEhtFG1PIVZZ7eqCNaJvZeKCqTZMq8Hd8r0ew0oirEbESsNLStiYwotlFd2cvRUWWpNqIyW7LA35ziUpfYg1-XyumeYGq9IMWzYrujNGYNeSXjzmjq2EtwU/s320/Haystacks.jpg" border="0" /><br />In the 80’s, desperate families developed private work-arounds. Yes, some aborted. Yes, some left their daughters out in a field or on the roadside to die. But many others hid their girls or quietly, informally, adopted their girls out to family, neighbors, or friends. In the early 90’s, authorities responded to this subterfuge with what appeared to be greater leniency, offering a “one-son or two-child” policy for the countryside. But they matched this leniency with stricter laws going beyond a narrow focus on births to address the loophole: informal adoption.<br /><br />Cadres of birth planning workers blanketed the countryside to monitor household head counts and reproductive behaviors. Penalties for violating birth planning laws were as harsh for adoptive families as birth families and included stiff fines (anywhere from one, to five, to even ten years’ worth of wages,) lost promotions, lost jobs, forced abortions, sterilizations, as well as public humiliation via tv and radio. (<em>How easily we forget what it means to be free...</em>)<br /><br />Still, babies were born.<br /><br />Thousands of brave families continued to adopt abandoned girls in the face of great personal cost and risk -- and another problem emerged. None of these girls could be registered at birth or beyond. They weren’t supposed to exist. But lacking formal registration, they also lacked basic civil, legal, and medical benefits: the right to go to school, the right to basic medical care, innoculations, or the right to reside in a given region or district. Those girls who made it to school were targets of derision – as if in fact they had no right to exist.<br /><br />With fewer options to hide or care for the children, the number of abandonments soared.<br /><br />State orphanages maintained a low profile to obscure their purpose. Signs suggested a preschool, or kindergarten, or children’s dance institute. Or there were no signs. Or the entrance was hidden. The fear was that if these places were discovered, their purpose known, they’d be flooded with babies.<br /><br />They were flooded anyway. And flooded with healthy children. In the years preceding the one-child policy, Johnson estimates roughly 90% of abandoned children in orphanages were disabled. But by the 1990’s Johnson found that, for example, in her daughter’s state-run orphanage, fewer than 20% of the children had any known disability.<br /><br />Overwhelmed with children, China's state-run orphanages grappled with mortality rates as high as 40%. In smaller, more remote areas, mortality rates approached 80%.<br /><br />Foreign adoption was viewed as a way for the government to release some of the pressure, to provide some of the children with homes, to bring in much needed funds -- while still masking the problem.<br /><br />Conditions in China’s orphanages have since improved. The government has slowly owned up to the problem and turned to the public for funds while also easing some of the restrictions on domestic adoption. Foreign money has helped. Over the last decade, Johnson estimates international adoption fees brought in more than $100 million. (Part of the cost of my daughter’s adoption was a required donation of $3,000 in support of her orphanage.) But, in her book, Johnson also raises a troubling possibility. Would China become dependent on foreign adoption? Was it too lucrative?<br /><br />I wrote Johnson to thank her for her book and ask about recent developments. Had she seen Jacobs’ <em>New York Times </em>article? She is currently working on a grant to pursue further research in China. With a scholar’s caution, she was reluctant to be quoted. She generously shared her sense that the situation in China hadn’t yet changed in the time I adopted my daughter (2001.) But she also senses things have changed in the past four or five years. Domestic adoptions have increased. And now, there are far fewer healthy girls in orphanages. She is wary.<br /><br />I confide my worries to a friend, a mother of two. What kinds of things will my daughter read as she grows older? What will she think? Did I contribute to something, in some small way, that’s beyond my wildest imagining?<br /><br />She’s not an adoptive parent. She tells me we can’t control what happens in the world or what our kids hear. I know she is right. I can’t change what happened or what’s currently happening in China. And I can’t protect my daughter (protect myself?) forever. I can only hold her and love her.<br /><br />Still, I never truly understood the extent of my vulnerability as an adoptive parent. Till now.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-29286305667517307392009-04-16T10:15:00.000-07:002009-04-16T11:41:36.945-07:00Car PoolI know it sounds crazy but I love our commute to school.<br /><br />It’s the time my daughter and I have our best conversations. Or, just as great, it’s a time I get to disappear into the background while she and her buddies get lost in their own chatter, spilling all the delicious candor, creativity, and outrageous wisdom that comes with being a kid -- the same candor, creativity, and wisdom that’s typically snuffed out by the time we’re grown. By then, we’re so well socialized, so neatly packaged and edited, that frankly, we’re boring.<br /><br />This morning’s conversation went like this:<br /><br /><em>Mom, all the teachers’ aides and assistants have boy friends.<br /><br />Really?</em><br /><br /><em>Well, like Bethany. She has a boyfriend.</em><br /><br /><em>Well, that makes sense. People in their 20’s and 30’s tend to date a lot so they can see who they want to settle down with. Dating is nice.<br /><br />When do I start dating? High school?</em><br /><br /><em>That sounds about right.<br /><br />But not right now. Kids my age don’t date. Right..?<br /><br />Noooo… you don’t date. But you can be friends with boys. That’s a good place to start.<br /><br />Yeah… but right now a lot of the girls get all giggly and silly around the boys.<br /></em><br /><em>Well that’s silly, isn’t it? Boys are nice. Boys are people too. But if you start getting all silly and giggly around them, it probably makes them feel strange. It probably makes them feel like aliens.<br /><br />Yeah! And then YOU look like the alien!<br /><br />Well… uh, yes. My point exactly.</em><br /><br /><br />My favorite carpool moment of all though happened two years ago, when my daughter was in first grade. Her school was one big construction site. It was a major renovation and the plans included a whole new middle school building. For much of the year, we watched as bulldozers and trucks excavated giant holes in the ground. We watched again as steel wires and poles and framing rose up and out of the ground. After an extended spring break, we were driving back to school and, as I turned down the hill, the new middle school building appeared, complete with siding and windows.<br /><br /><em>Hey girls! Look at the new middle school!<br /><br />Whoa! Look at that. Wow…<br /></em><br />I allowed myself a sentimental moment: <br /><br /><em>Can you imagine it, girls? Someday you’ll be in middle school.<br /></em><br /><em>Yeah…</em> my daughter sighed with wonder. Then she leaned over to her buddy to share an exciting thought, <br /><br /><em>Guess what we get then!<br /></em><br />Her buddy’s eyes grew wide with expectation, <br /><br /><em>What?</em><br /><br /><em>Boobs!!</em><br /><br />My daughter was beaming. I nearly drove off the road.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325347759876976882" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 255px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOlozghgVDT5YzgOkUhqN8jbR3f_kI-BoKWYuxC7ieEIZwQ6AZIGSyrfAXNyzSPEmXLQ-EjxVU0AzwXpDjPkOryzKur7R9UVNLPgwIY87s7bXMW5aynsw0bNQJ2ejf6e0sUy0VfftCg8o/s320/Upside+down+green+bfly.jpg" border="0" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-73833641773581102762009-04-14T10:40:00.000-07:002009-04-14T19:30:26.196-07:00Two MothersIt’s close to midnight and, as I get ready for bed, my mind returns to the start of the day with my daughter.<br /><br />I'd woken her that morning and rubbed her back and she’d mumbled something about a bad dream. In the rush to get ready for school, I said I was sorry and urged her to tell me more -- once she was downstairs, dressed, and ready for breakfast. But breakfast came and went in a blur. We finished our morning routine and I sat on the stairs to wait with her for her carpool. She tossed her lumpy, blue book bag -- bulging with books and a snack -- down by the door, then jumped and danced about the living room with her usual light-hearted spirit.<br /><br />She was dressed in a boy’s blue and white, striped t-shirt, baggy, bright red, athletic shorts that hung over navy leggings with a giant hole in one knee (she <em>likes </em>the hole there,) and running shoes. She prefers the “boyish” look even while she often complements these outfits with a ponytail tied with a large, lavendar, sequined scrunchie.<br /><br />She is lucky her mother doesn’t give a rip about fashion.<br /><br />She was silly, almost slapstick, striking funny poses. One minute, the sultry mystery woman, the next, a ninja spy, a karate master, a fierce warrior woman, then a swash buckling feminine sword fighter. (<em>Oh… to be nine again!</em>)<br /><br />We'd had a great week together the previous week, over break. She spent a day skiing with her beloved uncle – and arrived home exuberant, full of tales schussing down the slopes. (<em>And I got to sit in the front seat on the way home, Mom!</em>) We picked out a new bike -– her first with gears -- and spent sunny days pedaling around town. When the rain returned, we spent lazy mornings reading books, playing piano and card games, and watching movies cuddled on the couch (including a wonderful old Danny Kaye movie: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Court-Jester-Danny-Kaye/dp/079215519X"><em>The Court Jester</em></a>. Hilarious. Run, don’t walk to your local video store.) She enjoyed play dates, sleepovers, and a special evening performance of <em>HMS Pinafore</em>. She loves Gilbert & Sullivan, the language, music, rhythm, poetry, and patter song. She's memorized the lyrics to most of their productions.<br /><br />As I sat on the stairs and watched her happy, high energy dance I thought, <em>It's been a good week.</em><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324613206514633666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 218px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMM8aTSbsNrFS4lWLFDbst66mv7_n3APs8ZDSPUuXJJXj-TPJRkfpi4aItuDf0j-dzyk8FdITex82W6E3hzuTuLFbN7v5nzKpgXtxqyLN-Cq_7t1GZpz1ouQQt8ZYO3GzufhfqtvcBIE/s320/Bfly+buddies.jpg" border="0" /> <p>Then I realized: I never checked back in about that bad dream.<br /><br /><em>Did you want to tell me about your dream? We have time now.</em><br /><br />She came and sat down beside me.<br /><br /><em>This was a strange one Mom! We were cuddling in my bed like we always do. But when I looked around, it wasn’t you! The hair was frizzier than yours,</em> (sorry -- hard to imagine) <em>and the eyes weren’t green. I jumped up and found you in the closet -- tied to a stake. When I untied you, the woman in the bed sat up and said, </em>(pointing with dramatic flair) <em>“You have betrayed me!” </em><br /><br />Then, my daughter, imitating the woman from her dream, made the motion of someone slitting their throat.<br /><br /><em>Wow!</em> I said. <em>Was that your birth mother?</em><br /><br /><em>Yeah.</em> she said. <em>I think so.</em><br /><br />She didn't seem the least bit upset. She seemed more surprised by the strangeness of the dream.<br /><br /><em>Do you feel torn between two mothers? </em>I asked.<br /><br /><em>No. It was just weird, Mom. Really weird! </em><br /><br /><em>Did you wake with your heart pounding? </em><br /><br /><em>Yeah!</em><br /><br /><em>That’s intense…</em><br /><br /><em>Yeah!!</em><br /><br /><em>Well… </em>I paused. (<em>What to say?</em>) <em>Thanks for untying me.</em><br /><br /><em>Sure. No problem.</em><br /><br />She shared this all in a completely matter of fact way. Her ride came and she hugged me with enthusiasm before running down the steps to greet her friends and take on the day.<br /><br />I checked in with her once more when I picked her up from school that afternoon. We chatted about lots of things, then I referenced the dream, reassuring her she didn't need to pick sides. She could love two mothers -- and even love them in different ways if she chose. She knew this. She was cool about it. The dream was already, so... yesterday.<br /><br />That night, I flash on an image of myself tied to a stake, stuffed in my daughter’s closet.<br /><br />I guess it was my turn this time.<br /><br />Part of me wonders if I need to call Jonna again. Or, if I’ll need to lock my door when my daughter reaches her teens and hormones kick in.<br /><br />I remember <a href="http://http//apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/gratitude.html">Jonna's words</a>:<br /><br /><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><em>This will come up again and again.... the first time is usually the hardest. </em></div><br /><div align="left">Then I can’t help but smile as a voice in my head whispers,<br /><br /><em>It's the battle of the mothers...<br /></em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR_UhanidsZuQIi1X-Hwz8nMA3Yv56DHwKLuMq5Syc50HC6OIMKGvXs0OPt7hHj75Cn437uCN3NOIcu8fczwRlzv-NbiKcRYycFcDskcfwhbzKE94A4si53rQdg4raapwSut1gTUTNzlE/s1600-h/Fire+breathing+dragon.jpg"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuvRTTbT5Xy8zDKIdai2sqlvzlYkxny3eL2PrKjez9LPU1DnU7T1NVE8O4qFYPMxbA0XQT8-gpqMjMmF27xVroXETb4sRXz07UtLEGJB8TwkF1tOD-ivQQfa-TmXGzR89t5mGRhmtPbBg/s1600-h/Coil+bodied+dragon.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzmqEeo_wNAUscfaxEFyFYr1_jbefsRXgmzPyQ5lJ6ZYyUmto7vwi8jY4mFA2a8r91S41DjBCS5IXhuMbrdUTXhswdd8AdQP3i_UqFifXdpXLoQdm_TrWavZ79tC-BF_PsiPeo3nfbVcc/s1600-h/Coil+bodied+dragon+-+b.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324625713242063474" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 203px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 118px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzmqEeo_wNAUscfaxEFyFYr1_jbefsRXgmzPyQ5lJ6ZYyUmto7vwi8jY4mFA2a8r91S41DjBCS5IXhuMbrdUTXhswdd8AdQP3i_UqFifXdpXLoQdm_TrWavZ79tC-BF_PsiPeo3nfbVcc/s320/Coil+bodied+dragon+-+b.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9GZK_JQvxZGKRx8NimmtRr-jzwfPj9k3TU925FqLHM7hhG6nElFEoG3V_HSqtY4HKTL2PB3HhPF2gylz0kXI5BAVvZHCyFcQR3KkOxmYg05CpoLi62EanStp4pMFa0N8QcSlB3lxC6E/s1600-h/Fire+breathing+dragon+-+b.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324625832325469858" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 186px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 127px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9GZK_JQvxZGKRx8NimmtRr-jzwfPj9k3TU925FqLHM7hhG6nElFEoG3V_HSqtY4HKTL2PB3HhPF2gylz0kXI5BAVvZHCyFcQR3KkOxmYg05CpoLi62EanStp4pMFa0N8QcSlB3lxC6E/s320/Fire+breathing+dragon+-+b.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><p></p><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"><em></em><br /></div><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"><em>Or… is it the mother of all battles?</em></div><br />I give silent thanks again for my daughter’s honest, open heart, and climb into bed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-41105302701922142582009-04-13T13:05:00.000-07:002009-04-14T19:06:24.227-07:00GratitudeWe could be in someone’s living room. There are two big armchairs in the corner and the coffee table and walls are decorated with brightly colored Latin American dolls, textiles, and totems. There are plants, a lamp, and a nice spread of magazines. But there’s also a large desk in the corner piled with papers and the lights are turned down awfully low for 4:00 in the afternoon. A large box of tissues sits conveniently within reach on a low table to my right.<br /><br />Thankfully, I don’t need the tissues today.<br /><br />I am sitting in a large cushioned armchair talking with Jonna, a child therapist I tracked down and met with last spring. (My daughter met her back then too.) She’s a petite, brown haired woman probably in her mid to late fifties with a lean, angular body. She sits in the other oversized armchair facing me. Just like our visit last spring, she’s slipped off her shoes and tucked stocking feet up snug under her thighs. She leans to one side, balancing a small notebook in her lap. Her arm lies casually draped over her thigh and a pen dangles loosely between two fingers. She listens intently, focusing round, birdlike eyes on me. Her face is lined with wrinkles -- as if she’s taken on the cumulative cares of her clients. I like this woman for her compassion, for her work with children, but even more -- for her direct, no-nonsense feedback.<br /><br />I tell her about the events of the past week. About <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html">my daughter’s fears and worries</a>. About <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/04/of-loss-and-joy-and-desiring.html">confronting the truths of her story</a>. Then too, I tell her of the night my girl asked to re-read her <em>Homecoming</em> story, outloud, together. How it felt like coming full circle, a joyful celebration.<br /><br />Jonna tells me it’s common for adopted children to have these fantasies and fears. What’s more unusual is for grade school children to share their concerns so openly with their adoptive parents. Many are afraid to air their feelings. They stuff them and hold them inside, then wrestle with their confusion, or anger, in their teen years. (<em>I’m afraid of the teen years</em>.)<br /><br />Jonna reaffirms what she told me last spring. That my daughter is perceptive, and emotionally solid. That abandonment is the most profound, fundamental fear we face as humans. That she needs to be able to grieve, and that grieving is a process. That these issues will come up for her again, in different ways, but that the first time is usually the hardest. And, that it’s a testament to her courage, our relationship, she can be so honest with me.<br /><br /><em>So… how are you doing in all this?</em> Jonna asks.<br /><br />I concede it hasn’t been easy but, with each passing day, I am grateful – indeed immensely grateful -- for my daughter’s courage, her willingness to trust in me. It tears me up to witness her pain and yet, I stand in awe of her strength.<br /><br />I admit, with trepidation, I’ve been writing about our journey, sharing our story -- anonymously – in a blog I started. I’m scared Jonna will tell me I am betraying my daughter’s trust. Which is the reason why I know I should tell her about the blog. To get her candid assessment. <em>Do I kill the blog? I don’t want to kill the blog. </em><em>Writing about all the ups and downs of this journey helps me make sense of it all</em>.<br /><br />Jonna’s answer is not what I expect.<br /><br /><em>This is your story too. You’re entitled to a life as well.</em><br /><br />I pause, and swallow an unexpected lump.<br /><br /><em>Damn. </em>I do need one of those tissues today.<br /><br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324274208852243890" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 380px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 247px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxM6TiQhaLAgRqLm_UCYrWQm-Z9x_ItwYEkib7FQeo3jmPMifG8Hmb7wF9XuzcNrDPLsdR__JjLJpWoMdROw1FL0mFIbDncLlSR4eQpPcQB8qLsgb7ZT3Sm5H8sw3Q98gHClWETmLOxFM/s320/Coil+bodied+dragon.jpg" border="0" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030999379275940934.post-67514348760605285682009-04-07T21:16:00.000-07:002009-04-09T16:47:21.834-07:00Spring BreaksI step out the door each morning now and the air is full of bird song. I smell moist earth and fresh cut grass. The sun rises up and shines down on us, warming and waking our winterbound souls. On daily walks, I see indigo waters and great granite peaks laced with snow. The sky shimmers brilliant blue and, here in the neighborhood, cherry trees blossom along with the daffodils, hyacinth, honeysuckle, and camellias. It feels like a celebration.<br /><br />It's been a week of little, everyday joys. Given the <a href="http://apackof3.blogspot.com/2009/03/warriors.html">events of the past week</a>, each of those little joys feels huge. I take nothing for granted.<br /><br />Yesterday, at the end of another happy day, my daughter discovered:<br /><br /><em>Hey Mom! When I smile, I can see the tops of my cheeks! </em><br /><br />To which I replied:<br /><br /><em>Cool! When I close one eye, I get a great view of my nose.</em><br /><br />It's spring break this week and there's lots of happy news and other stuff to share but little time to share it. I should be able to post something Sunday or, if not then, by Monday. Please do check back. And thanks for stopping by!<br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322174679823963346" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 230px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig94XsB4Z2zyxZ22u9H_A7sJ0tIjvm-Pr48B7BTAIXG8gvp0IdohV2CWOr7lsUKF9u5aP9WkpPTb2jhP5rAhypAWhZ_1bsgKXFwYJGDCpW45TkH9sccINAtanoDAjU05VWhhVg_VsCaM/s320/Two+butterflies+on+a+bouquet.jpg" border="0" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1